Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first night Wine spent in his university dorm did not feel like the beginning of adulthood in the cinematic way he had imagined for years, nor did it carry the thrilling freedom people always promised university would bring. Instead, it felt strangely temporary, as though he had accidentally wandered into somebody else’s life and would eventually be asked to leave once someone noticed the mistake.

The room still smelled faintly of dust and cardboard from freshly unpacked boxes, mixed with the sharp, sterile scent of cleaning products that made everything feel impersonal. Half of his clothes remained folded in luggage beside the narrow bed because unpacking would mean admitting he was really here, and Wine still could not shake the uneasy feeling that he had arrived somewhere he did not fully belong. The fluorescent desk lamp cast a pale circle of light over his orientation papers and campus maps, all of which he had already crumpled and smoothed flat more than once, as if doing something with his hands might keep his thoughts from spiralling.
Rain drifted against the window in soft, irregular patters, while somewhere down the hallway someone laughed loudly enough for the sound to carry. Wine listened longer than he meant to, feeling the old, familiar distance settle in his chest, the quiet ache that came whenever other people seemed to belong to each other so easily.

University had only started that morning, and already he felt worn thin by the effort of introducing himself, smiling at the right moments, remembering names, and pretending not to notice how easily everyone else seemed to find their place.
He sat cross-legged on his bed, turning his student ID card over repeatedly between his fingers while replaying the day in his mind.
Orientation had been overwhelming from the beginning. He had been assigned his peer mentor and somehow ended up in a friend group where everyone already seemed connected by histories of being each other's peer mentors. Yotha, his mentor, had looked intimidating at first glance: tall, sharp-eyed, carrying himself with the kind of confidence that made people instinctively move aside, but he had quietly slowed his pace so Wine could keep up. At lunch, Gun, Yotha’s boyfriend, filled every silence before it could settle, bright and energetic in a way that made withdrawal impossible. Arm had nearly tripped down the engineering building steps while laughing at his own joke, and Arc had scolded him with such practised ease that it was obvious they had done this many times before. Wine had stood among them, feeling awkwardly grateful to be included and painfully aware that he was still standing at the edge of something that belonged to everyone else more naturally than to him. Watching them together stirred something strange inside Wine. It was not jealousy exactly, but something closer to longing, the kind born from witnessing people who had already found their place in each other’s lives. For a little while that afternoon, as Gun argued passionately about cafeteria food and Arm tried to convince everyone the campus ghost stories were real, Wine had forgotten to feel nervous.

Wine rubbed at his eyes before finally standing to make tea, mostly because he needed something small and ordinary to steady himself. The kettle in the communal kitchen took too long to boil, its low hum filling the quiet while the rain outside thickened into a steady fall. By the time he returned to his room with the mug cupped carefully between both palms, the hallway lights had already dimmed into their nighttime setting, and the building felt emptier than before.

That was when he noticed the envelope resting directly in front of his door. It was plain white, with no stamp and no sender, just his name written across the front in handwriting so painfully familiar that Wine stopped moving entirely.
For a long moment, he only stared, then let out a faint, disbelieving laugh under his breath because exhaustion was clearly beginning to get to him. The handwriting looked exactly like his, not merely similar, but the exact same slant, the same uneven pressure where the pen dragged harder against the paper during certain letters, even the tail of the ‘e’ in his name curved downward in the same way. Unease spread cold and slow beneath his ribs as Wine crouched carefully, his tea forgotten on the floor beside him, while he picked up the envelope with unsteady fingers. The paper felt worn, softer than it should have been, as though it had already passed through too many hands. Inside was a single folded sheet, carefully torn from what looked like an old notebook, and his chest tightened before he had even opened it. The first thing he noticed was the date written neatly at the top of the page: September 7th, today’s date. Wine sat down slowly on the edge of his bed, the rain outside now a soft, steady sound at the window, and felt the room draw inward around him as he began to read.

September 7th
Gun spilt coffee all over himself before orientation started, and Arm laughed so hard that Yotha told him to shut up three separate times. Arc gave Gun napkins from his own bag while pretending to be annoyed. I remember standing there thinking maybe university wouldn’t be lonely after all.
You haven’t met Yotha’s brother yet; that happens tomorrow. He arrives late after class, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled unevenly, because he is always in too much of a hurry to notice small things about himself. His hair is still damp from the rain, and he apologises immediately for being late, even though nobody cares. He is carrying vanilla milk tea.
Nobody stops him from drinking it; you only find out later about his milk allergy.
His name is Faifa. Tomorrow, he is going to smile at you for the first time, and it will feel strangely ordinary then, insignificant even, like one more person you will know briefly during university before life moves on. It will not stay ordinary.
You are going to fall in love with him slowly. It happens in pieces: in the way he always notices when someone is left out of conversations, in the way he gives people the better portion of his food without thinking about it, in how he says sorry before anyone can be disappointed in him, and in how he keeps making himself smaller so nobody has to make room for him. You will fall in love with him quietly at first, then completely, and one day you will realise loving him has become as natural as breathing, which is what makes losing him unbearable.
Faifa dies at the end of your first year, on the final day of his second year at university. By the time we understood how badly he was hurting, it is already too late. I keep trying to remember whether there were signs we missed, or whether we only turned ordinary moments into warnings afterwards because grief makes historians out of everyone left behind.
But there are things I know for certain now. He was lonely long before any of us realised. He believed being loved depended entirely on how useful he could make himself to other people, and despite being surrounded by all of us, he still died thinking he was difficult to keep.
I do not know whether these pages will reach you, or whether my memories can change anything. Maybe you will read this, and the future will happen the same way anyway; maybe there is no changing it. But if even one small thing can change, then please pay attention to him, notice the things we did not notice, stay when he tries to isolate himself, and tell him he matters before it becomes something you can only say to photographs. Please, Wine, you have to save him.
- Wine

Wine finished reading twice before his brain fully processed the words. The room had gone completely silent except for the rain, and his tea sat untouched and cooling near the door. Slowly, carefully, he looked back down at the page.
Gun spilling coffee had happened, Arm laughing had happened, even Yotha’s exact wording had happened, every detail was the same. A sick feeling curled low in Wine’s stomach. The mention of Yotha’s younger brother unsettled him most because there had been no younger brother today, at least none that Wine remembered seeing, yet the page described the scene with impossible certainty, not like a prediction but like recollection, a memory, his memory. Wine turned the sheet over, checking for hidden explanations or additional pages, but there was nothing else, just old notebook paper worn thin around the folds. He should have laughed it off, should have assumed someone was playing a strange prank, but nobody could imitate his handwriting this perfectly, and nobody could know the exact thoughts he had while standing beside the campus fountain, watching the peer mentor group argue earlier that afternoon. "I remember standing there thinking maybe university wouldn’t be lonely after all." Wine had thought those exact words, not similar ones, exact, and his pulse quickened unpleasantly. He stood abruptly and crossed the room toward the mirror above his desk, staring at his reflection as though expecting something visibly different about himself. Still, he looked the same as always: tired eyes, damp hair curling slightly from the humidity, an oversized university hoodie hanging awkwardly from narrow shoulders, entirely ordinary, and yet the paper still existed in his hand.

The final lines replayed endlessly in his mind: You are going to love him so much it will ruin you. Something about the sentence felt less romantic than catastrophic, like grief wearing the shape of affection. Wine swallowed hard before looking again at the date written carefully across the top of the page: September 7th, today, and despite himself, despite logic, despite how absurd the entire thing was, his eyes drifted slowly toward the clock, waiting as though tomorrow had suddenly become something dangerous.

Morning arrived slowly, grey light filtering weakly through the rain-streaked dormitory windows as though even the sky itself had not fully decided whether it wanted the day to begin. Wine barely slept. Every time exhaustion had almost managed to pull him under, his attention drifted back toward the folded notebook page resting on his desk, and with it came the same uncomfortable sensation pressing against his chest: the feeling that something impossible had already begun moving quietly around him while he remained several steps behind it.
By seven in the morning, he finally gave up on pretending rest would come and sat upright in bed staring across the room at the letter again. The paper looked ordinary in daylight, painfully ordinary, and somehow that only made it worse. He had checked it repeatedly throughout the night, searching for proof of a joke or manipulation, hidden ink, altered handwriting, some obvious explanation his tired brain had overlooked, but there was nothing, just old notebook paper covered in memories that had not yet happened to him but somehow already belonged to him all the same. The sentence lingering most violently in his mind was not even the mention of love; it was: ‘Nobody stopped him from drinking it,’ such a strange detail to remember and such a strange thing to regret.

Wine rubbed both hands down his face slowly before standing and forcing himself to get ready for the day. His reflection looked worse than yesterday: dark circles beneath his eyes, tension pulling visibly at the corners of his mouth. The kind of face his mother would have immediately noticed and asked about if he were still home. The thought made homesickness bloom briefly inside him before he shoved it aside. He could not afford to spiral today, not when some irrational part of him had already begun waiting for events from the letter to happen exactly as written.
Outside, the campus was louder than yesterday despite the weather. Orientation week energy seemed almost immune to exhaustion, with crowds of students moving between buildings beneath umbrellas while music from some student club event echoed faintly through the central courtyard. Wine walked carefully through it all, clutching his bag strap tightly against his shoulder, the folded page hidden safely inside one of his notebooks. He told himself repeatedly not to think about it and failed almost immediately, because every time he spotted one of the peer mentors in the distance, his stomach tightened.

He found the group gathered outside the engineering building exactly where they had agreed to meet. Gun was speaking animatedly about something while waving a half-finished iced coffee around dangerously close to Yotha’s jacket. Arm leaned against the railing, laughing already, despite nobody else seeming to know the punchline yet. Arc stood nearby with the exhausted expression of someone deeply accustomed to chaos but too fond of the people creating it to truly complain. For one terrible second, Wine could only stare because this had already happened once, not literally, but enough. His mind immediately compared the scene before him against the letter. Gun had not spilt coffee today, and the realisation arrived small but sharp enough to leave him briefly dizzy with relief: different, something was already different.

"Wine!"
Gun spotted him first, smiling brightly while motioning him over. "You look exhausted. Did university already destroy you overnight?"
Wine forced a weak laugh and approached the group carefully, trying not to look visibly unsettled. "Didn’t sleep much," he admitted.
"Same," Arm said dramatically, throwing himself against Arc’s shoulder. "Arc snores."
"I don’t snore," Arc replied flatly.
"You absolutely do."
"You drool in your sleep."
Their argument continued instantly while Gun laughed hard enough to nearly spill his drink again.
Wine found himself smiling despite the tension coiled tightly beneath his ribs.
"Sorry, I’m late." The voice arrived softly behind them. Everything inside Wine went still. He turned instinctively.

A boy stood several feet away adjusting the strap of a messenger bag against one shoulder, rainwater still clinging to dark strands of hair that looked hastily dried with careless hands. His white university shirt hung partially untucked beneath a loose jacket, sleeves rolled lazily toward his elbows as though he had dressed without fully paying attention. In one hand sat a plastic cup of vanilla milk tea slick with condensation. Exactly as written.
For one disorienting moment, Wine forgot how breathing worked, not because the letter had been correct, but because the boy himself looked painfully alive in a way Wine had not expected, warm and soft around the edges despite the exhaustion lingering beneath his eyes. Handsome, though not in the polished, effortless way people usually meant the word, there was something slightly uneven about him, something human and tired and open that made Wine’s chest ache before they had exchanged a single sentence.

Yotha rolled his eyes immediately. "You’re twenty minutes late."
"I brought peace offerings," the boy replied, lifting the drink carrier in his free hand slightly.
Gun brightened instantly. "Faifa!"
The name hit Wine strangely after reading it so many times alone in the dark the night before; Faifa, real, existing, alive.
Yotha gestured lazily toward the group. "This is my brother. Faifa, second-year engineering."
Faifa’s attention shifted toward Wine, and something about the expression that crossed his face softened immediately, just enough to feel instinctive.
"You’re one of the freshmen?" Faifa asked gently. Wine nodded too quickly. "Yeah. Wine."
"Wine," Faifa repeated like he was testing how it sounded aloud. "Cute name." Heat rushed embarrassingly fast into Wine’s face. Gun made an exaggerated gagging noise immediately while Arm burst into delighted laughter.
"Oh, he’s shy," Arm announced.
"I am not."
"He absolutely is," Gun interrupted gleefully.

Wine wanted the ground to swallow him whole but through the embarrassment, his attention kept catching on details the milk tea, vanilla, just like the letter said. Cold unease crawled slowly back into his stomach as he looked at the drink again, then at Faifa, then back at the drink, while nobody else seemed remotely concerned.
Conversation continued around them easily, Yotha complaining about class schedules while Arm tried convincing Gun to skip mentor responsibilities and disappear for lunch instead. Faifa laughed along naturally, leaning comfortably into the group dynamic in a way that made it obvious he belonged here completely. Yet beneath all of it, Wine noticed something else. Every time Faifa spoke, there was an attentiveness to him that felt almost excessive, like someone constantly monitoring the emotional atmosphere around him. He laughed quickly after jokes, apologised whenever he accidentally interrupted, and shifted conversations smoothly away from uncomfortable pauses before they fully formed. It felt practised.

Then Faifa peeled the straw wrapper from his drink absentmindedly, and before Wine fully realised what he was doing, the words left his mouth. "Aren’t you allergic?"
Silence followed. The words had come out too fast, too familiar, and everyone looked at him, including Faifa. Wine’s stomach dropped instantly. Idiot, how were you supposed to explain knowing that?
Faifa blinked once, visibly startled. "How did you…?"
Wine scrambled desperately for an explanation. "Yotha mentioned it yesterday."
Yotha frowned immediately. "I definitely didn’t."
Wonderful, perfect, Wine considered simply walking directly into traffic but before panic could completely consume him, Gun suddenly snapped his fingers. "Oh right, you are allergic! Why are you drinking that?"
Faifa looked down at the cup like he had genuinely forgotten what he ordered. Then he laughed softly. "The auntie at the drink stall recommended it"
The sentence landed strangely: simple, careless, as though discomfort was automatically less important than inconvenience. Wine remembered the line from the letter with painful clarity. Nobody stopped him from drinking it. His chest tightened. "Still," he said quietly, surprising even himself with how firm his voice sounded, "you’ll get sick."
For a moment, Faifa stared, surprised, as if concern directed toward him specifically were unfamiliar enough to require processing. Then, slowly, something gentler settled into his expression.
"You’re kind," Faifa said softly, and the words embarrassed Wine immediately because he did not feel kind; he felt terrified.
Before he could answer, Gun snatched the drink directly from Faifa’s hands. "Nope. Absolutely not. You’re not spending the evening dying because you’re too polite to waste six baht."
"Gun."
"I’ll drink it."
"That’s worse somehow."

Laughter broke the tension instantly, and conversation resumed, but Wine barely heard any of it, because the timeline had changed; tiny, insignificant maybe, but changed. Faifa glanced toward him again through the noise around them, smiling faintly in a way that felt softer than before. Wine suddenly understood something terrifying: the letter had not been warning him about death, it had been warning him about all the small moments before it.

For the next several days, Wine began living with the unbearable feeling of existing slightly ahead of time. Every morning, another page appeared: folded beneath his dorm room door, tucked between lecture notes, once even slipped carefully inside the pocket of his bag despite the zipper remaining closed all night. They were always dated one or two days ahead, always written in the same tired handwriting that belonged unmistakably to him, and always described moments not as predictions, but as memories already mourned.
At first, Wine had approached the pages cautiously, half-convinced the differences between timelines would remain small enough to barely matter; but after the milk tea incident, after watching reality shift away from the original memory written on the page, he could no longer pretend the letters were passive things. The future could move, which meant every page now carried a terrible kind of weight, because if moments could change, then maybe some moments absolutely had to.
The newest entry arrived Thursday morning, folded inside his one of his textbooks. The paper looked more worn than usual, creased deeply across the centre as though it had been carried around for years before finally reaching him; Wine unfolded it immediately at his desk before class began.

September 12th
Faifa burns his hand on one of the tabletop hotplates during lunch today. He laughs immediately afterwards; that’s the important part. He always laughs first whenever something hurts him, and people relax when someone smiles; nobody reacts strongly because he doesn’t. Gun tells him he’s stupid, Arm laughs, Yotha barely looks up from his phone, and Faifa wraps his hand in napkins and keeps eating like nothing happened. By evening, the burn blisters badly enough that Arc forces him to treat it properly.
I remember thinking, Why didn’t he say it hurt more? Years later, I understood the better question was, Why did we need him to say it at all? Watch his face carefully when he gets hurt; he reacts as if pain is embarrassing.
- Wine

Wine stared at the final lines long after finishing, then folded the page carefully and slipped it into his pocket. Gun dropped heavily into the cafeteria seat beside him several hours later.
Lunch quickly descended into its usual chaos and throughout all of it, Faifa moved effortlessly between conversations, smiling easily, laughing quickly, brightening every interaction he touched without seeming to realise he was doing it.
The strangest part was how natural everyone’s affection toward him seemed. People constantly leaned toward him, looked for his reactions first, and saved seats beside him automatically; he belonged everywhere. Yet now that Wine knew what to look for, the imbalance beneath it all had become impossible to ignore. Faifa took care of people instinctively, however nobody monitored him the same way, not because they didn’t love him, but because he never acted like he needed anything.
Wine noticed the scrape across Faifa’s knuckles first while he gestured animatedly during conversation. A thin bandage hung half-peeled from one finger like it had been there for days already, and yesterday he had mentioned skipping dinner casually because he ‘forgot.’ Small things, individually meaningless, together unsettling.

Then, exactly as written in the diary page, Faifa reached absentmindedly toward one of the hotplates in the centre of the table. His fingers touched metal, and the burn happened instantly. Wine saw the reaction before anyone else did: the brief tightening around Faifa’s eyes, the tiny involuntary flinch he immediately suppressed beneath a laugh. "Ow," he said, light and easy, like the pain amused him and just as the letter described, nobody reacted properly at first. Gun kept talking, Arm laughed at something unrelated, and Yotha remained focused on his phone, because Faifa was smiling, because people trusted the emotions he presented. The realisation struck Wine so hard it almost hurt.

Without thinking, he caught Faifa’s wrist gently before he could pull his hand beneath the table. "That’s burned badly." The conversation around them faltered slightly. Faifa blinked at him in visible surprise.
"It’s okay." Always automatic, always immediate; Wine hated how instinctive those words sounded.
"No, it isn’t," he replied quietly. "Run it under water before it blisters."
For a second, Faifa stared, not annoyed but confused, as though concern directed toward him specifically required conscious processing.
Gun leaned across the table abruptly. "Oh my god, you actually burned yourself."
"It’s fine."
"It already looks awful," Gun interrupted. "Go to the sink before Arm has a medical emergency."
"I don’t think burns work that fast."
"Move." Arm said immediately
While Yotha finally glanced upward. "You did that again?"
Again. The word settled heavily inside Wine’s chest. Faifa groaned dramatically but allowed Gun to shove him upright anyway. As he stood, the sleeve of his oversized hoodie slipped downward slightly, exposing bruises along his forearm: faded yellow near the elbow, darker near the wrist. Wine’s stomach tightened immediately. Too many injuries, too much carelessness, like his body existed at the absolute bottom of his priorities.
Faifa noticed his gaze for a brief moment and tugged the sleeve back down automatically, then smiled. "Don’t look so worried, Wine," he teased softly. "I’ll survive" The words should have sounded playful; instead, they lodged somewhere deep and painful beneath Wine’s ribs, because suddenly surviving did not feel like a casual phrase anymore, it felt exhausting.

Another page appeared in the morning, a few days later. This one rested beneath Wine’s pillow; the sight alone unsettled him enough that he sat motionless for several seconds before unfolding it.

September 14th
I find Faifa asleep in the library between lectures today, with three empty coffee cups beside him and a textbook open beneath his face. He wakes up after I bump the table accidentally; he looks panicked before he realises it’s me. At the time, I thought I startled him. Looking back now, I think his body had forgotten how to rest properly.
There’s something else I need you to notice today. When he stretches after waking up, he pauses halfway through and grabs his ribs when he thinks nobody’s paying attention. He says he walked into a table; maybe that part’s true, maybe not, but he’s in pain. I noticed and said nothing because I didn’t know if asking would embarrass him. By then, I already cared about him enough to fear making him uncomfortable. Isn’t that pathetic? Loving someone quietly enough that you help them stay hidden.
Bring painkillers today; he won’t ask for them himself.
- Wine

Wine reread the final line three times. Bring painkillers today. The specificity unsettled him more than anything else, not because the request seemed impossible, but because it sounded so heartbreakingly ordinary, as though saving someone might begin with something as small as carrying medicine in your bag.
By afternoon, the strip of painkillers sat untouched inside Wine’s pocket while he crossed campus toward the library building after class and there, exactly as written, Faifa slept curled awkwardly against the sofa corner beneath the window, his textbook spread open beneath his cheek, three empty coffee cups to his side as he slept with one arm hanging limply toward the floor. The familiarity of the scene sent a strange ache through Wine immediately; not déjà vu exactly, more like stepping carefully into somebody else’s memory.
For a long moment, he stood there watching. Sleeping softened Faifa visibly; the constant attentiveness disappeared from his face entirely, leaving only exhaustion behind. Dark circles sat pronounced beneath his eyes now that he wasn’t smiling enough to distract from them.

Wine moved quietly, intending to leave without waking him, but his bag clipped the table edge accidentally. Faifa startled awake immediately; his whole body jerked hard enough for panic to flash visibly across his face before recognition settled in.
"Oh," he exhaled softly, pressing one hand briefly against his chest. ‘You scared me.’
"Sorry," Wine said quickly. "I didn’t mean to wake you."
"It’s alright."
Always that phrase. Faifa rubbed tiredly at his eyes before sitting upright slowly; then, halfway through stretching, his expression tightened sharply. Real pain this time. Wine saw it immediately because he had been waiting for it. Faifa’s hand moved instinctively toward his ribs before he stopped himself halfway through the motion: the exact moment described in the letter, and suddenly the choice sat directly in front of Wine. Ignore it like before, or change it.
"You okay?" Wine asked gently.
Faifa blinked, visibly caught off guard. "I’m all good." A Lie.
Wine reached carefully into his bag before nerves could stop him. "I have some spare painkillers."
Faifa stared at the packet in his hand with an expression Wine could not fully understand at first; not embarrassment, but something softer, almost alarmingly vulnerable.
"You carry medicine around?" Faifa asked quietly.
"Sometimes." That was technically true now.
Faifa laughed faintly beneath his breath, though this time the sound lacked its usual easy brightness. "You’re quite observant, huh?"
The words landed strangely, almost carefully. Wine suddenly became aware of how close they were standing. Faifa looked exhausted, not just tired, but exhausted in a way that settled into posture and bone alike. Wine held the medicine out again, more gently this time. "You don’t have to just deal with it alone." The sentence escaped before he fully thought it through. Immediately, something shifted across Faifa’s face, tiny and brief, but enough; like those words reached somewhere deeper than Wine intended, Faifa smiled softly, less polished than usual and accepted the painkillers carefully from Wine’s hand.
"Thank you." The sincerity in his voice hurt more than it should have, because it sounded like nobody had done something this simple for him in a very long time.

The letters began arriving more frequently after that; not every day, but often enough that Wine started structuring his life around them without consciously meaning to. Each morning carried the same quiet pulse of dread now, his attention immediately drawn toward whatever object looked even slightly out of place: folded paper beneath his door, loose notebook pages tucked between lecture slides, thin sheets resting atop his desk despite remembering clearly that the surface had been empty the night before and every time he unfolded one, he experienced the same terrible split inside himself: fear of what it might say, and of what would happen if it stopped because somewhere along the way, the letters had become more than warnings; they were becoming proof that another version of him had loved Faifa enough to memorise him completely: the way he smiled when embarrassed, the exact phrases he repeated automatically, which injuries he hid and which ones he laughed about openly.

September 17th
Faifa falls asleep during the afternoon elective lecture today, second row from the back, his hoodie pulled over his hands because the classroom air conditioning is too cold. He apologises to the professor afterwards, even though he stayed awake longer than most people there. I remember thinking he looked embarrassed for being tired; that sentence sounds strange now, embarrassed for being human.
You’ll notice him rubbing at his wrists today when he thinks nobody’s paying attention. Don’t stare too long; he notices when people look at him with concern, and it makes him retreat.
- Wine

Wine folded the page carefully afterwards and spent the entire lecture hyperaware of every movement around him. Exactly as written, Faifa fell asleep halfway through class, his head tilted awkwardly against his folded arms, grey hoodie sleeves covering most of his hands. The sight pulled painfully at something inside Wine, because sleeping should not have looked so unnatural on someone. Even unconscious, Faifa seemed tense, as though his body no longer trusted rest completely.

Wine caught himself watching too long, then remembered the letter: don’t stare too long; it makes him retreat. When class ended Faifa startled awake with visible embarrassment written across his face, Wine simply slid a canned coffee quietly across the desk toward him without comment. Faifa blinked down at it, then up at him. "You keep appearing with things I need," he said softly. The words were teasing, but there was something quieter beneath them too, something that sounded dangerously close to gratitude. Wine looked away first, and for the rest of the day, the warmth of that brief smile lingered stubbornly inside his chest.

The next letter arrived Thursday evening. This one looked older than the others somehow, its edges softened heavily from handling, the ink faded slightly near the folds.

September 18th
You have your first panic attack at university today. It starts after classes: too much noise, too many people, too much pressure from thinking you’re already falling behind. You hide near the south stairwell because you don’t want anyone seeing you cry over something stupid. Around twenty minutes later, Faifa finds you. I don’t remember what expression you make when he sees you like that; I only remember how gentle he is afterwards.
He doesn’t ask what’s wrong immediately; that’s important. People always ask questions first when they panic about someone, but Faifa just sits beside you. Then after a while he asks, ‘Want somewhere quieter?’ He takes you to the rooftop above the arts building. You feel embarrassed the entire walk there; you apologise three times, and he tells you, ‘You don’t have to apologise for being upset around me.’ I wrote that sentence down because nobody had ever spoken to me that carefully before.
I remember him staying on the rooftop alone afterwards. I wish I knew why that memory still destroys me; maybe because I know now what rooftops meant to him.
- Wine

Wine finished reading with trembling hands. The panic attack itself barely registered at first; his attention caught instead on one unbearable detail: in the original timeline, Faifa stays on the rooftop alone afterwards. The sentence settled inside him like a warning disguised as memory. Wine barely slept that night, and by afternoon the next day, everything unfolded exactly as written.
Classes overwhelmed him first, then the noise, then the crowds, then the crushing sensation of falling behind everybody else despite trying desperately to keep up. By the time he escaped toward the south stairwell, his breathing already felt wrong. Embarrassment made everything worse immediately. People passed nearby occasionally, footsteps echoing through the stairwell while Wine sat several floors above ground with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, trying unsuccessfully to steady his breathing before anyone noticed. His chest hurt; he hated crying, hated how weak panic always made him feel afterwards. Most of all, he hated the possibility that someone might find him like this.

Which of course meant that Faifa found him. "Wine?" The voice arrived softly from below, and Wine’s eyes shut instantly. Footsteps climbed the stairs slowly until Faifa appeared around the landing corner several moments later, bag hanging from one shoulder while concern softened immediately across his face at the sight before him but just like the letter promised, he didn’t ask intrusive questions immediately, didn’t panic, didn’t overwhelm him with concern. Instead, Faifa sat carefully beside him on the stairwell, several steps lower, enough space between them to feel respectful rather than distant.
Silence stretched quietly. Wine stared hard at the concrete floor, humiliation burning hot beneath his skin. "I’m okay," he managed weakly after several moments.
Faifa hummed softly beside him, clearly unconvinced; yet he still didn’t push. Outside the stairwell window, light shone softly through the glass while students moved distantly across campus below them. The world outside continued normally despite how violently Wine’s chest still hurt. Then exactly as written, Faifa asked, "Want somewhere quieter?"
The familiarity of the sentence made something ache sharply inside Wine, but he nodded before thinking too hard about it. Faifa stood first, waiting patiently while Wine steadied himself enough to follow. Neither spoke much during the walk across campus afterwards. Wine remained painfully aware of himself the entire time: his swollen eyes, his uneven breathing, the shame still clinging stubbornly to his ribs, yet somehow Faifa never made him feel embarrassed.
The rooftop above the arts building remained almost completely empty when they arrived. The city stretched softly beyond the campus buildings, lights beginning to flicker awake beneath darkening clouds and for the first time all day, Wine’s breathing eased slightly.
Faifa leaned both arms against the railing quietly beside him. "This place is nice when everything gets loud," he said after a while. Wine glanced toward him carefully. Without the constant movement of crowds around him, Faifa seemed different up here somehow; softer, quieter, less visibly constructed, as though this was one of the few places he allowed himself to stop performing ease for other people.
"Do you come up here often?" Wine asked quietly.
Faifa smiled faintly toward the skyline. "More than I probably should." Wind pushed loose strands of hair across his forehead. There was exhaustion in his face again that day, the deeper kind, bone-deep; and suddenly Wine understood why Future Wine remembered this rooftop so vividly: Faifa looked lonely there.
"I’m sorry," Wine blurted suddenly, shame returning full force now that the panic itself had faded slightly. "You probably had better things to do than deal with me crying in a stairwell."
Faifa turned immediately, and for the first time since meeting him, genuine confusion crossed his expression. "Why are you apologising?"
Wine stared down at his hands. "I don’t know. I guess I’m a little embarrassed."
"At being upset?"
"When people see it."
For several seconds, Faifa said nothing, thinking. "You don’t have to apologise for being upset around me." Exactly the same, word for word; yet hearing it aloud still shattered something quietly inside Wine, because the kindness in Faifa’s voice sounded so instinctive, so sincere, as though caring for hurting people came naturally to him even while carrying invisible wounds himself.
The two of them remained on the rooftop long after sunset settled fully over campus, talking quietly now, not about anything important at first: classes, professors, Gun’s inability to behave in public when he's with Yotha. The conversation flowed easily in a way that frightened Wine slightly, because comfort with people had never come naturally to him before; yet with Faifa, silence never felt punishing.

Eventually, Wine noticed him shivering faintly beneath the wind. "You’re cold."
"I’m alright."
"You say that about everything."
Faifa laughed softly at that. "Maybe I’m just a bit dramatic."
Maybe you’re exhausted, Wine thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. As he got ready to leave Wine lingered beside the exit door instead, future Wine’s words echoed heavily through his mind: in the original timeline, he stays on the rooftop alone afterwards.
Faifa noticed his hesitation immediately. "What?"
Wine scrambled for an excuse, then asked, "Do you want to get food?" The question startled both of them slightly.
Faifa blinked. "Right now?"
"You skipped dinner yesterday." The words escaped before Wine could stop them.
For a brief moment, real surprise crossed Faifa’s face. "You remember that?"
Wine suddenly felt embarrassed. "You mentioned it."
Faifa looked at him strangely then, as though something about being remembered mattered more than the invitation itself. He smiled. "Okay," he said quietly. "We can eat dinner together" The timeline changed again.
The strangest part about changing the future was how ordinary it looked while it happened. There were no dramatic shifts, no visible fractures splitting reality apart, no sudden certainty that disaster had been avoided.

Another page arrived Monday morning, folded inside his lecture notebook, the handwriting more rushed than usual this time, with several words pressed so deeply into the paper that their marks showed through on the reverse side.

September 24th
Arm corners you and Faifa outside the engineering building today because he thinks the two of you are ‘being suspicious.’ You deny everything immediately as Faifa laughs so hard he nearly spills his drink.
I remember Faifa, and I left together after this because Arm makes things awkward enough that neither of you wants to stay. We walk back toward the library, and I remember he was quieter than usual; I think he looked tired. Funny how often I wrote that sentence without understanding what it meant.
- Wine

Wine folded the page slowly afterwards, unease lingering beneath his ribs. The events themselves seemed harmless enough, normal even, but lately the letters no longer felt like observations alone. They felt fragile, as though each altered moment loosened something further from the original timeline, and the more reality drifted, the more difficult it became to predict which memories still mattered.
By lunchtime, the courtyard outside the engineering building buzzed with conversation and music from club recruitment booths lining the walkways, the weather had finally cleared, leaving the entire campus washed gold beneath afternoon sunlight.
Wine spotted the group immediately near the fountain. Arm waved the moment he saw him, grinning slowly, dangerously, and Wine’s stomach dropped.

"Well, well," Arm announced dramatically as they reached the table. "There they are." Wine immediately recognised the opening line from the letter, and his chest tightened instinctively.
Faifa, meanwhile, looked entirely unbothered. "Who?"
"You two," Arm accused, pointing between them aggressively. "Suspicious behaviour."
Wine nearly choked on air. "What does that even mean?"
"It means," Arm continued with absolute confidence, "you disappear together constantly now."
"We studied once," Wine protested weakly.
"Twice," Gun corrected helpfully.
Arm leaned forward further. "And yesterday you brought him coffee."
"He looked tired." Faifa laughed suddenly beside him, not polite laughter but real laughter, bright enough that several nearby students glanced over automatically.
Wine’s face burned instantly. "I hang out with all of you, why is it different if I hang out with Faifa?"
"You hang out with us as a group, never one-on-one like you do with Faifa," Gun said, looking teasingly between them.
Yotha finally looked up from his phone. "What’s happening?"
"Your brother is corrupting freshmen."
Faifa gasped dramatically. "I’ve corrupted no one. Ask anyone on campus, they’ll tell you I’m nothing but helpful to them, including Wine."
"Actually," Gun added thoughtfully, "Wine does look more relaxed lately."

That silenced him immediately because it was true. University no longer felt as unbearably lonely as it had during the first week, and almost every improvement eventually traced back to Faifa. The realisation unsettled him slightly. Arm continued talking loudly while the conversation dissolved into overlapping chaos, but Wine found himself distracted instead by something quieter.
The scene felt familiar, not just because of the letter, but because the emotions themselves matched too closely: Faifa laughing beside him, sunlight catching against the fountain water, Gun and Arm making things louder than necessary. Beneath the familiarity, tiny differences persisted.
Over the next week, Gun checked whether Faifa ate more often now, Arc watched him carefully when he looked exhausted, and even Yotha had started asking where Faifa disappeared to whenever he wandered off alone between lectures. The shifts were subtle enough to seem accidental, yet together they formed something impossible to ignore, and somehow the thought terrified Wine more than comforted him because if everyone kept changing, why did Faifa still feel exactly the same? That was the part keeping him awake lately. No matter how much the timeline shifted around him, Faifa himself remained painfully consistent, still apologising automatically, still smiling through pain, still treating his own exhaustion like an inconvenience instead of concern. The others adapted but Faifa endured, and every unchanged part of him felt like standing too close to an approaching storm.

At the end of the week, they walked side by side across campus beneath slowly darkening skies while the evening wind stirred fallen leaves along the pathways around them. Faifa carried the food he had ordered earlier but never had time to eat after helping a group of juniors.
"You should eat that," Wine said eventually.
Faifa looked down at the container vaguely. "Oh."
"Oh?" Wine repeated.
"I forgot." Wine stared at him flatly. Faifa laughed softly. "Sorry."
"You don’t have to say sorry for forgetting lunch."
"I know," but the apology still arrived instinctively anyway, and Wine looked away before frustration showed too clearly on his face, not frustration at Faifa, but at the invisible shape of whatever had taught him to diminish himself this thoroughly.
Wine’s dorm building appeared ahead of them, Faifa slowed slightly near the entrance. "Thanks for today," he said quietly.
Wine blinked. "For what?"
"Hanging out with me again." The sincerity in his voice startled him because Faifa sounded genuinely grateful for something Wine considered effortless.
Wine lay in bed, wondering whether pain could survive even inside love. Increasingly, that seemed to be exactly what he was witnessing. Faifa was loved; there was no doubt about that anymore. The entire group orbited him naturally, protected him instinctively, looked for him in crowded rooms, yet somehow none of it seemed capable of reaching whatever loneliness existed buried deepest inside him. Perhaps the cruellest realisation of all was that Faifa hid it beautifully. Most people would never notice the fractures at all, but Wine had the letters, and because of them he had begun recognising the terrible pattern beneath every interaction: the way Faifa gave care immediately yet accepted it cautiously, the way he softened whenever someone remembered small things about him, the way surprise flickered across his face each time somebody stayed, as though abandonment still felt more believable than affection.

Wine closed his eyes briefly. Somewhere between the first letter and now, fear had changed shape inside him. At first, he feared the future itself; now, he feared something smaller, quieter, harder to fight, that maybe Faifa had already spent so many years convincing himself he was easy to leave behind that even changing the timeline might not be enough to make him believe otherwise.

The letter arrived tucked carefully beneath Wine’s laptop as though someone had slid it there while he looked away for only a second.

September 29th
Arc and Arm start arguing over holiday destinations during lunch, and it quickly turns into complete chaos. Arm wants beaches, Arc says beaches are ‘just sand,’ Gun somehow suggests camping despite hating insects, and Yotha threatens to leave all of you behind. Then someone asks Faifa about London, and I need you to pay attention carefully here, not to what he says, but to his face before he says it.
I think this is the first time I ever saw his mask crack completely, emptiness, the kind that appears so suddenly it almost doesn’t look human. It lasts maybe two seconds, then he smiles again and jokes about British weather. For years afterwards, I convinced myself I imagined it. I thought maybe grief made me rewrite memories into something darker than they were, but I remember feeling cold immediately after seeing him like that, like some part of me realised I was looking at a wound too deep to understand properly.
Don’t force him to talk, please don’t do that. He hates feeling cornered. Just don’t ignore it either. Stay close afterwards, walk him home if you can. Silent comfort matters more to him than questions. I wish I had understood that sooner.
- Wine

Wine reread the entry several times. The line that lingered most painfully was not even the description of Faifa’s expression, but For years afterwards, I convinced myself I imagined it, because lately Wine had started doing the same thing constantly, second-guessing every sign, every pause, every injury, every moment where sadness flickered too quickly across Faifa’s face before disappearing beneath another smile.
Sometimes he wondered whether the letters themselves had made him paranoid, whether he had begun dissecting normal human exhaustion into warning signs simply because future grief had taught him to fear them.

By lunchtime, the entire mentor group had gathered around their usual collection of cafeteria tables. The atmosphere felt unusually relaxed today. Arm lounged dramatically across two chairs despite Arc repeatedly kicking his leg back down, Gun kept stealing pieces of food directly from Yotha’s tray, and Faifa laughed beside Wine softly enough that the sound settled warmly beneath his ribs before he could stop himself from reacting to it.
Everything looked painfully normal, which somehow made the letter worse. Wine found himself watching Faifa carefully despite trying not to, looking for cracks, looking for something only future grief had taught him to recognise. The guilt of that sat unpleasantly inside him because Faifa deserved to exist without being constantly observed for signs of breaking, and yet Wine couldn’t stop, not anymore.

The conversation drifted lazily between topics, the usual comfortable chaos that naturally formed whenever all of them occupied the same space long enough. Then Arm groaned loudly while scrolling through travel photos on his phone.
"I need a holiday immediately."
"You need academic discipline," Arc replied.
"I need a beach."
"Beaches are just sand and sand gets everywhere."
"That is the saddest sentence anyone has ever spoken." Gun immediately inserted himself into the argument. "We should go camping."
"You cried over a mosquito last month," Yotha reminded him flatly.
The conversation dissolved quickly after that. Arm wanted beaches, Gun insisted mountains were spiritually healing. Wine recognised the scene unfolding almost word-for-word from the letter, and slowly unease tightened beneath his ribs. Then Gun turned suddenly toward Faifa. "You’ve lived in the UK," he said. "Where should we go if we ever visit Europe?"
The shift happened instantly, tiny and almost invisible, yet because Wine had been waiting for it, he saw everything. Faifa’s smile disappeared first, not gradually, just gone. His entire face emptied so quickly it genuinely startled Wine, not sadness, but there was nothing, like someone had hollowed him out completely from the inside for one brief terrible second. His eyes suddenly looked distant, unreachable. Wine felt cold immediately, exactly like the letter described, and somehow that frightened him more than obvious pain ever could have because the emptiness looked buried deep within him.
Just as quickly, Faifa smiled again, bright, easy, effortless. "So you can experience terrible weather properly?" he joked lightly. "Very immersive."

Everyone laughed immediately, and the conversation moved forward, but Wine barely heard any of it because now that he had seen the crack, he couldn’t unsee it, and worse, future Wine hadn’t imagined it.
Faifa contributed normally again almost immediately, teasing Arm, arguing about food, laughing softly whenever Gun became dramatic, yet now every smile looked painfully deliberate to Wine. Not fake, that wasn’t the right word, more like carefully maintained, as though Faifa had learned long ago how to rearrange himself quickly whenever emotions threatened becoming inconvenient for other people. Wine suddenly understood something horrible: nobody else had noticed the silence, the emptiness, not because they didn’t care, but because the moment disappeared too quickly unless you were already looking for it, and Wine hated that he was.
The rest of lunch passed strangely after that. Wine found himself quieter than usual while anxiety twisted restlessly beneath his skin, and several times he caught Faifa glancing toward him with faint concern, probably noticing the shift in mood despite saying nothing about it directly. Eventually the group dispersed toward afternoon classes, Arc dragging Arm away by the sleeve before he could start another argument, Gun complaining loudly about assignments, and Yotha answering a phone call halfway across the courtyard, leaving Wine and Faifa walking side by side alone toward the architecture building.

For several minutes neither spoke. Then, softly, Faifa said, "You’re quiet today." Wine looked up. Faifa’s expression remained gentle, open, as though nothing had happened earlier at all, and the contrast made Wine’s chest ache.
"Just tired," he answered automatically. Faifa hummed softly, clearly unconvinced, the same response he always gave Wine. Something about that almost made him laugh.
Instead, silence settled again between them, though not uncomfortably. That was one thing Wine had begun to realise lately: silence with Faifa rarely felt empty. It felt inhabited somehow, like company without pressure. Eventually, they reached the quieter path near the architecture building gardens, where campus noise softened beneath rustling trees and distant traffic, and before Wine could overthink himself into cowardice again, he spoke carefully. "You didn’t like London much?"
The question hung gently between them, neither forceful nor demanding. Still, Faifa slowed slightly, and there it was again, not the emptiness this time, but something more guarded. His shoulders tightened almost invisibly beneath his oversized hoodie. Wine immediately regretted asking, but before he could apologise, Faifa laughed softly under his breath. "That obvious?"
"A little." Wine tried to keep his tone light, fearing Faifa might close off if he reacted too strongly.
Faifa looked ahead "London was… Complicated." The word felt too small somehow. Wine stayed silent, waiting, not pushing, exactly like the letter asked. Faifa glanced toward him briefly, almost surprised by the lack of immediate questions. Most people filled silences quickly around difficult topics, demanded explanations to soothe their own discomfort. Wine just walked beside him, and something inside Faifa slowly seemed to loosen.
"My mum still lives there," he said after a while. Wine nodded once. "She likes it more than Thailand." A pause, "I think she liked starting over after the divorce." The sentence landed heavily, not bitter or angry, which somehow made it sadder.
Wine looked toward him carefully. Faifa still smiled faintly while speaking, but now it looked thinner somehow, more tired around the edges. "She moved there after the divorce?" Wine asked gently.
"Mhm, I went with her before moving back to Thailand 2 years ago."
"How old were you?"
"Eleven." Too young. The thought arrived instantly. Wine couldn’t stop imagining it suddenly: a child separated from his father and brothers, taken somewhere cold and unfamiliar, learning quickly not to become difficult.
Beside him, Faifa laughed softly again. "You’re making that face."
"What face?"
"The sad one." Wine looked away immediately, embarrassed, but Faifa’s expression softened strangely afterwards, like seeing someone care hurt him a little.
"She wasn’t evil or anything," Faifa said quietly. "Just… tired a lot. I was happy when I moved back here." The words felt instinctive, protective, as though even now he needed to minimise his own pain before discussing it aloud.
Wine remembered the letter again: Silent comfort matters more to him than questions. So instead of pushing further, he simply slowed slightly until their shoulders brushed gently together while walking, tiny contact, barely there yet Faifa went silent immediately, not pulling away, just quiet, and for the first time since meeting him, Wine noticed how exhausted loneliness looked on someone once they briefly stopped hiding it.
"You know," Faifa said softly after a while, "most people get uncomfortable when conversations stop being fun."
Wine blinked. "Hm?"
"You don’t." The observation caught him off guard. Before he could answer, Faifa smiled again, shorter this time, less polished, with something fragile visible beneath it now. "Thank you," he said quietly. Then he disappeared, telling Wine to go ahead of him as he promised to help a few architecture students with building their projects, before Wine could figure out why those two words suddenly made his chest hurt so much.

The perfect 10 liner retreat took place mid-October after Arm insisted they all go out together. They stayed in a holiday home several hours outside the city, tucked between dense trees and on the outskirts of a small village. According to Arm, the purpose of the trip was ‘Peer bonding.’ According to Arc, it was ‘an organised excuse for nobody to sleep properly.’
By the time the van arrived at the house that afternoon, everybody already seemed louder than usual, maybe because they were away from campus or maybe because the air itself felt lighter outside the constant pressure of classes and deadlines. Wine thought quietly as he stepped out onto the gravel path with his overnight bag hanging from one shoulder, just over a month ago, university had felt impossibly huge and lonely; now the sound of familiar voices spilling across the driveway made warmth settle instinctively somewhere beneath his ribs.
Gun immediately called out to Wine as soon as they got out of the van. "Wine! Help me before Arm can break anything."
"I heard that," Arm shouted from inside.
"You were supposed to." Yotha said looking at him.
Wine laughed despite himself as he adjusted his bag. Beside him, Faifa stretched both arms overhead slowly, the late afternoon sunlight casting shadows across his face. He looked tired again today, softer around the eyes, movements slower than usual, but unlike the sharp exhaustion Wine noticed during the first weeks of university, this one seemed quieter. Safer, maybe. That thought lingered while the group settled inside the retreat house together. Arm somehow convinced everyone to drag mattresses into the shared common room instead of sleeping in separate rooms, declaring that sleepovers built character. The entire evening unfolded with the easy warmth of people accidentally becoming family without realising exactly when it happened. Arc connected music to the speakers in the corner, snacks covered nearly every surface, and open windows let cool evening air drift through the common room while the sky outside darkened.
Wine sat cross-legged on the floor between Gun and Faifa while Arm explained the rules of Truth or Dare, which nobody listened to properly. Faifa laughed softly beside Wine, his shoulder bumping lightly against Wine’s as he reached for a bag of chips. The contact lasted only a second, but warmth bloomed annoyingly fast across Wine’s face. He hoped nobody noticed. Unfortunately, Gun noticed everything. His grin widened immediately, and Wine narrowed his eyes in warning, which only seemed to delight him more.

The game descended into chaos almost instantly.
Arm weaponised every question. Gun betrayed everybody enthusiastically. Yotha pretended disinterest while somehow remembering embarrassing details about everyone anyway and throughout all of it, Wine slowly began noticing something strange: the others kept directing conversations toward Faifa, not obviously enough to seem intentional, just in subtle ways. Gun asked about his engineering projects first, Arm dragged him into every team game, even Arc occasionally spoke directly to him despite normally avoiding group participation wherever possible, and more than that, they kept pushing Wine towards him as well.
During charades, Gun suddenly switched seats, so Wine ended up beside Faifa again. During card games, Arm insisted that Wine and Faifa were obviously a team, and Yotha rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. At first, Wine assumed he was imagining it, but later, while splitting into groups for some ridiculous drawing challenge, Gun physically grabbed his wrist and shoved him toward Faifa with enough force to nearly send him sideways onto the cushions.
"There," Gun announced proudly. "Correct placement."
Wine stared at him in disbelief. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing," Gun replied innocently, though absolutely nobody looked convincing.
Faifa only laughed quietly beside him while shifting to make space anyway, and somehow that felt worse, because Wine kept catching tiny moments where the atmosphere around them seemed strangely aware of something he himself was still trying desperately not to name.

The thought stayed lodged somewhere restless beneath his skin throughout the night, especially because, despite the teasing, the constant noise, and the laughter, Faifa looked genuinely happy. Not performing happiness, actually relaxed. Wine noticed it most during the quieter moments between games, when Faifa briefly forgot to monitor everyone else around him. He leaned into people naturally when laughing, rested his head for a moment against Yotha’s shoulder during the movie, and smiled without immediately checking whether anyone else was smiling too. It made something painful twist quietly through Wine’s chest, because every glimpse of softness from Faifa felt strangely fragile, like watching someone slowly lower armour they had forgotten they were wearing.
Later that evening, after several rounds of increasingly chaotic games, Arm disappeared into the kitchen and returned carrying a box.
Wine looked over cautiously. "What is it?"
Yotha already looked exhausted. "It’s sweet vs spicy, isn’t it?"
Faifa groaned dramatically beside Wine and asked why Arm was like this.
"Because suffering builds community," Arm declared.

The game itself was simple: most of the snacks were harmless, but a few were aggressively spicy enough to ruin lives temporarily. Within minutes Gun was crying, Arm was nearly choking with laughter, and Arc looked deeply regretful about every decision that had led him here.
Besides Wine, Faifa laughed so hard he physically doubled over against him. Wine froze at the sudden weight of him pressed warm against Wine’s shoulder for several breathless seconds before Faifa realised what he had done and straightened quickly. "Sorry." Always apologising. Wine swallowed carefully and told him it was okay, though the words came out softer than intended. For a brief second, Faifa looked at him strangely, not uncomfortable, just searching, before Arm screamed because he had picked the worst snack possible and the moment dissolved back into chaos.
Hours passed like that easy, warm, loud with laughter and overlapping conversations. Wine remained constantly aware of the folded page tucked inside his overnight bag upstairs. He had found it while packing earlier that morning, but there had been no chance to read it privately before everyone arrived. Now the unopened letter lingered at the edge of his thoughts like a held breath, especially because tonight already felt too good, and the letters had taught him to fear good moments almost as much as painful ones, because happiness made the future feel worth losing.

By nearly 1 am, the living room had descended into exhausted chaos. Gun lay half-asleep against Yotha, Arm was still trying to keep conversations alive despite barely remaining conscious himself, and Arc quietly covered people with blankets while pretending not to care. Faifa sat beside Wine on the floor near the couch, his knees pulled loosely toward his chest while the remains of some terrible movie played softly in the background.
"You’re falling asleep," Wine murmured. Faifa blinked slowly and denied it at once. "You literally just closed your eyes for ten seconds."
"Meditating."
Wine only hummed. The room felt softer now somehow, quieter, as if everyone’s exhaustion had stripped away the louder edges of themselves. Wine found himself studying Faifa again without meaning to the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the small healing cut near his thumb, the way tiredness seemed to pull honesty more easily from his face.
Then Faifa stood slowly from the floor. "I’m going to wash up before I fall asleep." Gun raised one hand weakly without opening his eyes, waving him off as he left the room. Faifa looked toward Wine from the doorway "Don’t let Arm choose movies while I’m gone."
Faifa grinned before disappearing down the hallway, and somehow his absence changed the atmosphere at once, not dramatically, just enough for Wine to notice, like warmth leaving a room quietly.

Several minutes later, while everyone else remained distracted, arguing over films, Wine finally slipped away upstairs under the excuse of getting water. The hallway was dark and quiet compared to the common room below, moonlight spilling faintly through narrow windows while distant laughter echoed softly from downstairs. Once inside the shared room, he reached immediately into his bag. The folded page waited exactly where he had left it, and his pulse quickened unpleasantly as he unfolded it.

October 13th
We stay overnight in the countryside today, and Arm forces everyone into games until nearly three in the morning. Gun cries eating spicy food, Arc threatens murder at least twice, and Faifa laughs so hard during one of the games that he accidentally falls against you. I remember being unable to breathe for a little while afterwards.
That night felt warm, safe. During the night, you find Faifa near the shared bathrooms changing after showering, he doesn’t realise you’re there at first. Wine, I need you to prepare yourself for this memory. You see the scars on his thighs accidentally, some faded, some not, bruises too, cuts healing badly, evidence of someone who stopped treating pain like something worth reacting to. He looks terrified when he realises you saw, not angry, not ashamed, scared, like he expects you to look at him differently now.
At that time, I panicked internally and pretended not to notice. Later we sat outside together near the sports field, and he told me, “Sometimes I’m clumsy.” We both know he’s lying, but I let him. I don’t think that part was wrong; he wasn’t ready to say more. Just don’t let your face look horrified, please. I think he’s spent his whole life watching people become uncomfortable once they realise how badly he’s hurting.
- Wine

By the time Wine finished reading, his hands were shaking. The room suddenly felt too quiet, too small. Scars, bruises, and cuts are healing badly. A strange nausea twisted low in his stomach immediately because, despite all the signs he had already noticed, the exhaustion, the carelessness, the way Faifa treated pain like an inconvenience, some part of him still had not fully prepared for this, not really. Worse, the event had not happened yet.
The realisation hit seconds before footsteps sounded quietly somewhere down the hallway, and Wine’s chest tightened instantly. The bathroom. For one brief, terrible moment, he considered staying hidden upstairs entirely, pretending exhaustion had kept him in bed and avoiding the scene altogether but the memory of the letter settled heavily inside him: He looks terrified when he realises you saw. Not ashamed, terrified. The difference mattered. So eventually Wine forced himself back into the hallway, heart pounding painfully against his ribs. Light spilled faintly from the shared bathroom doorway ahead, which stood partially open. He hesitated outside it for several long seconds before quietly calling Faifa’s name. No response, only the distant sound of running water stopping. Wine stepped closer carefully and froze.
Faifa stood near the sink, half-dressed, his oversized sleep shirt pushed up slightly as he changed after showering. The injuries became visible instantly: thin white scars crossing his upper thighs, others newer and angrier, bruises scattered carelessly across skin like marks he barely noticed anymore. Somehow, the worst part was not the evidence of self-harm itself, but the careless additional injuries around them; scrapes healing unevenly, cuts left untreated, purple bruises blooming where someone should have rested instead of ignoring pain completely. Evidence of someone who no longer instinctively protected himself.
Wine’s breath caught sharply, and then Faifa looked up. The moment recognition hit him, genuine fear crossed his face, not embarrassment, fear. Immediately, he grabbed for his clothes, covering himself too quickly while forcing out a laugh that sounded painfully artificial. "You know knocking exists, right?" The joke cracked around the edges. Wine realised suddenly that the next few seconds mattered terribly, so despite the shock still clawing through his chest, he forced himself to keep his expression soft, gentle, not frightened.
"Sorry," he said quietly. "I was looking for you."
Faifa’s hands still shook slightly while he adjusted his shirt. "It’s okay." Silence stretched heavily between them before he said, too casually, "They’re old." A lie, or maybe only partially one. Wine swallowed carefully. The horror he felt was not directed toward Faifa, but toward the thought of him hurting this long without anyone understanding the depth of it.
He remembered the letter, remembered the warning, and instead of asking questions or panicking, he only said, "Okay." That seemed to affect Faifa more deeply than confrontation would have, as his shoulders loosened slightly afterwards, almost as if in relief.

Wine looked away deliberately then, giving Faifa space to finish dressing without feeling watched. A few minutes later they stepped quietly outside together into the cool night on the balcony. For a while neither spoke, then, very quietly, Faifa said, "Sometimes I’m clumsy." The same lie, the same careful offering of distance.
Wine stared ahead toward the woods instead of directly at him. "Then I’ll start carrying a med kit with me, next time you fall or get hurt, come find me, I’ll treat your injuries," he said, simple and gentle, not accusing.
Beside him, Faifa went completely still. Then, after a long silence, "I’ll try." The honesty in those two words nearly broke something inside Wine, because for the first time since meeting him, Faifa sounded tired enough to stop pretending completely.
Morning arrived slowly after the retreat night, pale sunlight filtering weakly through thin curtains while the house remained wrapped in the heavy quiet unique to places where too many people had stayed awake too late together. The common room looked destroyed in the soft dawn light blankets tangled across the floor, empty snack bags abandoned between cushions, someone’s hoodie hanging from the back of a chair like evidence of a small disaster.

Wine woke earlier than most people, not because he was rested, but because his mind had never properly settled after the conversation outside with Faifa the night before, maybe conversation was not the right word, what happened on that balcony had felt more fragile than that, two exhausted people sitting quietly in the dark while one of them said, "I’ll try." The memory lingered painfully.
Nearby, Gun remained asleep, curled halfway across Yotha’s chest, despite Yotha clearly being awake already and suffering through it silently. Arm had somehow stolen three separate blankets during the night. Arc stood near the kitchen entrance drinking coffee with the expression of a man reconsidering every friendship he had ever made and beside the couch, Faifa still slept. Wine’s chest tightened immediately at the sight. Curled loosely on his side beneath a thin blanket, dark hair falling messily across his forehead, one hand tucked beneath his cheek, he looked younger somehow, softer. The exhaustion visible on him while awake still existed in sleep, but quieter now, less defended. Wine found himself staring too long, then looked away quickly.
His bag rested near the staircase where he had left it earlier, and sticking visibly from the front pocket was another folded page. The sight alone made unease settle through him. Another letter. Carefully, Wine stood and retrieved it while the others remained distracted by breakfast and sleep deprivation. This page looked newer than some of the others, less worn, the ink darker, almost as though Future Wine remembered this day more clearly. He unfolded it slowly near the kitchen doorway in the morning light.

October 14th
Everyone is exhausted after the sleepover. Gun nearly falls asleep standing up while packing, Arm complains continuously for three hours, and Arc threatens to leave him behind twice. Faifa disappears for around ten minutes before everyone starts loading the cars. When he comes back, his hands are scratched up. He says he found a kitten trapped near the fence line, and I remember thinking he looked happier holding that cat than he looked holding most things.
I remember staring too much as he took the kitten back to the village. On the drive home, Faifa falls asleep against your shoulder. In the original timeline, Gun wakes him accidentally while trying to tease you, and Faifa apologises immediately before moving away. He spends the rest of the drive pretending he was not tired.
Wine, I don’t think he slept properly after last night. Please let him rest this time, even if it is only for an hour. I know that sounds small, but exhaustion accumulates quietly in people.
- Wine

Wine reread the final line slowly: Exhaustion accumulates quietly in people. Something about the sentence hurt more after seeing the scars the night before, because now every mention of tiredness surrounding Faifa felt heavier somehow, not temporary, but lived-in.
Wine folded the letter carefully before slipping it back into his pocket just as Arc called from the kitchen: "If you want breakfast, get here before Arm and Gun steal everything again."
Laughter drifted easily through the house while everybody slowly packed belongings and folded blankets in varying states of exhaustion. Despite the noise around him, Wine remained strangely aware of absence. Faifa was no longer inside, Wine grabbed his overnight bag and stepped outside toward where the van was parked. Cool morning air brushed softly against his skin as Faifa called his name, warm and soft, from somewhere near the fence line. Wine turned immediately and stopped moving. Faifa stood several metres away near the edge of the gravel path, crouched beside the wooden fence bordering the property. A tiny kitten rested carefully in his hands.
The sight hit Wine suddenly, because Faifa looked happy, not with the practised social brightness he carried around groups, not with the easy smile he used to comfort other people. This one was quieter, real, small and warm enough to settle within Wine before he could defend himself against it. The kitten meowed softly while climbing awkwardly against Faifa’s sleeve.

"Come here," Faifa called gently. "Look how tiny he is."
"He likes you," Faifa murmured. As the cat moved his head into Wine's hand.
"Why does it like me? You rescued him," Wine pointed out.
"Maybe he likes your energy, very comfortable yet fun to be around." Wine laughed softly, but then his attention caught again on the cuts across Faifa’s fingers.
"You should clean these properly." Faifa only shrugged lightly and said they were fine. Always that answer.
Before Wine could argue further, a phone camera clicked. Both of them turned at once. Arm stood several feet away, holding his phone with the most delighted expression imaginable. "Oh my god," he announced dramatically. "You two look disgustingly sweet."

Wine nearly stopped breathing. Arm immediately turned the screen toward them, revealing exactly what Wine feared: the two of them standing close together in soft morning sunlight, smiling unconsciously while a tiny kitten sat between them. It looked intimate, tender in a way Wine was absolutely unprepared to process emotionally. Beside him, Faifa burst into bright, real laughter, startling the kitten slightly in his hands. Wine’s face burned violently.
"This is art." Arm yelled as Gun shouted for him to show it immediately, and Faifa only laughed harder. The sound eased something tight inside Wine despite the embarrassment threatening to kill him on the spot.

"Ignore them. The kitten wants your attention again," Faifa called gently.
Wine approached before fully realising he had started moving, and the closer he got, the more details settled painfully into focus. Fresh cuts were scattered across Faifa’s hands, thin scratches crossing his knuckles and fingers, some still pink from recent bleeding. Wine frowned immediately and asked what had happened. Faifa glanced down vaguely,
"Ah." He smiled sheepishly. "The kitten got stuck in brambles near the fence."
"The thorns did this?"
"Mhm. He was crying." The answer came, as though hurting himself to help something frightened was the most natural decision imaginable.
Wine stared at the scratches, then at the kitten purring loudly in Faifa’s hands, something unbearably fond twisted deep in his chest. "Quickly he wants you to pet him again," Wine reached out carefully, and the kitten immediately leaned into his hand with a tiny rumbling purr that made Faifa coo quietly beneath his breath. Suddenly, the entire moment felt painfully domestic somehow, morning sunlight, sleep-soft voices, Faifa smiling at him while holding something small and fragile with impossible gentleness. Wine thought distantly that this he might not survive being around Faifa.
Later Faifa crouched carefully beside the fence again, setting the kitten back near the bushes where he had originally found it. "One of the locals probably owns him," he said softly while the kitten circled his shoes.

The drive home began shortly afterwards. Arc drove the car, Yotha on GPS duty, and Wine ended up squeezed into the back seat beside Faifa while Gun and Arm occupied the row behind them loudly enough to qualify as a public disturbance. Within twenty minutes, exhaustion had completely settled over the car. Gun’s complaints gradually slowed into sleepy mumbling, and even Arm eventually stopped talking long enough to stare blankly out the window.
Beside Wine, Faifa fought sleep visibly, and Wine noticed at once the way his blinking slowed, how his head occasionally dipped before jerking upright again, the faint tension in his shoulders each time he forced himself awake. The letter echoed heavily in Wine’s mind: Please let him rest this time. Almost unconsciously, Faifa’s head tipped sideways until it rested lightly against Wine’s shoulder. Wine stopped breathing. Heat flooded instantly through his chest. Faifa made a tiny sleepy sound beneath his breath before settling more fully against him, exhaustion finally overwhelming embarrassment for once.

Behind them, Gun immediately leaned forward with a grin, but Wine reacted before thinking. "Don’t wake him." The words came soft but immediate, protective enough that silence briefly filled the car. Gun blinked. Then, slowly, his expression changed, no longer teasing, but understanding. Beside him, Arm looked toward the sleeping weight resting against Wine’s shoulder and went quiet too. The gentleness of it made Wine’s chest ache unexpectedly, because they understood. No jokes, no teasing, just quiet acceptance.
Faifa slept more deeply now, his breathing gradually slowing against Wine’s shoulder while the motion of the car carried all of them steadily back toward the city. As Wine looked down, his attention was caught again by the fresh scratches across Faifa’s hands resting loosely in his lap, still untreated. Carefully, so he would not wake Faifa, Wine reached toward his bag near his feet. Inside sat the small tube of antiseptic cream he had recently started carrying for Faifa.
Wine unscrewed the cap quietly before hesitating and gently reaching for Faifa’s hand. The scratches looked worse up close, tiny cuts carelessly crossing pale skin, several still irritated by dirt and brambles. He dabbed antiseptic softly against one knuckle, and Faifa stirred at once. His eyes opened halfway, unfocused with sleep, while he remained leaning against Wine’s shoulder. For one terrifying second, Wine thought he would pull away.
Instead, Faifa only blinked slowly. "What’re you doing?" he mumbled.
"Putting cream on your cuts," Wine whispered back. "Go back to sleep if you’re tired."
Faifa stared at him for several quiet seconds, still half asleep, and then something soft melted through his expression. A tiny hum escaped him. Instead of pulling away, he relaxed further against Wine, more weight settling warmly along his side, a small sleepy sound leaving him as he unconsciously nuzzled a little closer beneath the movement of the car. Wine thought his heart might genuinely stop. Carefully, he continued applying antiseptic across the scratches while Faifa drifted back to sleep almost immediately, trusting, completely unaware of how devastatingly precious he looked right now. From the row behind them, Gun made the faintest wounded noise imaginable, and Arm kicked him quietly before he could say anything.

November settled over campus slowly, the university changed with the season in small, quiet ways Wine had not noticed during his first anxious weeks there, with students lingering longer beneath trees between classes, café windows fogging faintly from hot drinks, and jackets appearing slung lazily over shoulders during evening lectures.
Wine found himself noticing things that hurt, not dramatic things, just the endless tiny ways Faifa treated himself like an afterthought. It existed everywhere once Wine learned how to recognize it: Faifa giving away his umbrella because somebody else forgot theirs, then walking through rain himself afterward with wet sleeves and a smile that dismissed concern before anyone voiced it; skipping meals because helping other students with assignments ‘took longer than expected’; apologizing automatically whenever someone did something kind for him, as though care itself came attached to inconvenience.
Worst of all was how instinctive it all seemed, not manipulative or performative, but survival, as though years of minimising himself had become reflexive enough to feel natural. Wine thought about it constantly now, which was probably why the next letter unsettled him so deeply.
It appeared in the morning, folded neatly between his lecture notes.

November 3rd
Faifa forgets to eat again today, not intentionally, I don’t think. He just keeps putting himself last until entire meals disappear without him noticing. Around one in the afternoon, you find him outside the engineering building drinking coffee instead of eating lunch.
He says he’ll eat later but later never comes. I know because by evening, he gets dizzy standing up too quickly near the library stairs, and everyone laughs because he jokes about it first. That’s the important part: he always makes pain easier for other people before allowing himself to feel it.
Wine, buy him food today, not because he asks, but because he won’t. In the original timeline, you hesitate too long because you’re afraid of seeming overbearing, so instead you laugh awkwardly and let him brush it off. Then that night, I wrote three pages, wondering why kindness always felt like something he needed permission to accept.
There’s another thing. When you hand him food, he says, don’t say, ‘It’s nothing.’ Don’t minimise it. Tell him, ‘I wanted to.’ I think people spend so long surviving neglect that eventually they stop understanding the difference between obligation and love.
- Wine

Wine stared at the final sentence long after finishing. Outside the classroom window, students crossed campus, the ordinary noise of university life carried on, completely unaware of the grief folded inside the page resting in his hands. Obligation and love, the distinction settled painfully somewhere deep in his chest, because suddenly Wine realised how often Faifa reacted to care like it came attached to debt, as kindness required repayment, like affection exhausted itself eventually.
The thought followed him relentlessly for the rest of the morning. Wine spotted Faifa exactly where the letter promised, sitting alone on the low concrete wall outside the engineering building, one leg bouncing absently beneath him while he scrolled through his phone and in his hand was coffee, only coffee. Wine’s chest tightened immediately. For several seconds, he stood there watching. Faifa looked beautiful in a painfully human way today, his hair slightly messy, oversized hoodie sleeves pulled halfway over his hands, and dark circles faint beneath tired eyes that clearly hadn’t slept enough to rest properly. He also looked hungry, not visibly starving, just quietly neglected, the kind of hunger that came from repeatedly forgetting that you mattered too.
Wine hated it instantly. Before he could overthink himself into hesitation, he turned toward the nearby convenience stall beside the courtyard entrance and bought two warm rice bowls along with bottled tea. His nerves worsened while carrying them back, not because buying lunch was strange, but because suddenly the letter’s warning echoed too loudly inside him: he won’t ask. The realisation made every step feel heavier somehow.

Faifa looked up immediately when Wine approached, and smiled, soft, automatic, warm enough to make Wine’s stomach flip embarrassingly. "I thought you would be escaping back to your dorm room by now," Faifa said lightly.
"You skipped lunch," the words escaped more directly than intended.
Faifa blinked once, then laughed softly. "I was going to eat later." Exactly the same. Wine’s chest hurt.
Instead of answering immediately, he held the food out toward him quietly. For a second, Faifa only stared. The expression crossing his face felt so fleeting Wine might have missed it without the letters teaching him to look closer: surprise first, then something smaller and sadder underneath.
"You bought this for me?" Wine nodded. "You didn’t have to." The sentence arrived softly, instinctively, like an apology disguised as gratitude, and because he already knew it was coming, because Future Wine had practically begged him not to fail this moment again, Wine forced himself not to retreat into embarrassment, not to laugh it away.
Instead, he sat carefully beside Faifa on the concrete wall and said quietly, "I wanted to."

The courtyard noise around them blurred strangely distant for several long seconds afterwards. Faifa stopped moving entirely, his hands tightening slightly around the warm container still resting untouched in his lap, he looked toward Wine, and something about his expression made Wine’s chest ache immediately, because nobody should have looked this affected by being fed lunch.

"...Oh," Faifa said softly. Only that, yet the tiny crack in his voice nearly destroyed Wine on the spot. He looked down quickly before emotion showed too visibly across his face. Faifa laughed faintly beneath his breath after a moment. "You’re dangerous, you know that?"
Wine blinked. "What?"
"You do nice things very seriously." The words were teasing, but beneath them lingered something quieter, something vulnerable.
Wine swallowed carefully. "I just didn’t want you surviving on caffeine."
"Coffee probably counts towards some sort of mandatory nutrition."
"No, it doesn’t."
Faifa smiled again, shorter this time, less polished somehow, then finally opened the food container, and Wine realised suddenly, painfully, that Faifa had genuinely intended not to eat until much later, maybe not at all. The thought sat heavy beneath his ribs while they ate quietly together beneath the grey afternoon sky. After a while, Faifa nudged one bottled tea toward him. "Drink, don’t try and eat too quickly, it's bad for your stomach," he announced solemnly.
"Sharing the drinks I brought?"
"My point stands; if you brought it, then it would be wise to drink it."
Wine laughed softly, and beside him, Faifa relaxed enough that some of the exhaustion softened faintly from his face while eating.
The sight alone made something warm and heartbreaking bloom inside Wine’s chest, because it shouldn’t have mattered this much, one meal, one quiet afternoon, and yet somehow it did. Perhaps that was because every act of care toward Faifa felt strangely disproportionate in emotional weight, like touching bruises no one else realised existed.
Students began flooding from nearby classrooms as lectures ended around them, voices echoing loudly through the courtyard. Faifa glanced toward the growing crowd and sighed dramatically. "If I fail engineering this semester, tell everyone I died beautifully."
"You say that every week."
"One day I’ll mean it."
The joke landed wrong instantly, not because Faifa intended anything by it, but because Wine’s fear had grown too sharp lately. His chest tightened painfully before he could stop it. Faifa noticed immediately, and just like that, concern replaced humour across his face.
"Hey," he said softly. "I was joking."
"I know," but Wine’s voice still sounded strained.
For a moment, neither spoke, then Faifa said quietly, "You get worried really easily lately." The observation wasn’t accusatory. If anything, it sounded gentle, which somehow made Wine feel worse. He couldn’t explain the truth, that every small joke about disappearing lodged itself violently inside him now, because somewhere in another timeline, Faifa already had.
Wine forced a weak smile instead. "You make terrible jokes."
"That’s fair." Faifa continued watching him afterwards, with faint concern lingering in his eyes, and for one terrifying second, Wine wondered if his fear would eventually become visible enough to ruin everything between them.

The thought stayed with him through the rest of the afternoon, especially later, while walking back toward the dormitories beneath the cooling evening sky. At some point, Faifa’s sleeve slipped downward while adjusting his bag.
More bruises, faint yellow marks near his wrist again. Wine’s stomach twisted immediately. Without thinking, he asked, "What happened there?"
Faifa glanced down vaguely. Voice casual. "I walked into a cabinet." Wine stared flatly. Faifa laughed softly. "Electrical engineering remains the most dangerous subject."
"You say that every time."
"It’s a good excuse." However, something shifted slightly in his expression, not enough for most people to notice, enough for Wine: a flicker of embarrassment, as he realised suddenly how often Wine caught him injured lately and the instinctive retreat. "It’s really not a big deal." There it was again, that endless minimising. Wine stopped walking. Faifa slowed too, looking back toward him with visible confusion.
Before nerves could stop him, Wine spoke quietly. "You know you don’t have to earn basic care from people?"

The words escaped before he fully thought them through. Silence followed instantly. Wind stirred softly through nearby trees while students passed distantly across campus several meters away. Faifa stared at him, completely still, and slowly something fragile crossed his face, not sadness exactly, more like shock, as though nobody had ever said those words aloud to him before. Wine immediately felt embarrassed, too honest, but before he could apologise, Faifa looked away quickly toward the path ahead.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded quieter than usual. "I know." The lie hurt because both of them recognised it immediately, yet Wine didn’t push further. Instead, he stepped forward again until their shoulders brushed lightly together while walking, a familiar contact to bring a sense of comfort to Faifa.

By mid-November, Wine realised something quietly terrifying: he had started looking for Faifa automatically, not consciously at first, but in small, unconscious ways that slowly became impossible to ignore.
His eyes drifted instinctively toward crowded lecture halls, searching for dark hair and oversized hoodies before he even sat down. He slowed slightly outside the architecture building because Faifa sometimes cut across the courtyard around that time, and he checked his phone more often between classes because Faifa had a habit of sending messages that sounded casual, yet somehow carried warmth through even the shortest sentences.
Faifa: The sweet snack you like is on sale at the moment at the convenience store
Faifa: Gun has somehow convinced Yotha to wear a couple of outfits today, be ready to hold back your laughter when you see them
Faifa: Arc brought all of us food. Come quickly before it runs out. It’s not often we get to spend someone else’s money.
The messages themselves were ordinary, yet Wine found himself smiling at them, and outside those messages, he began noticing something else, too: Faifa had started finding him as well.
It happened with such natural ease that Wine didn’t fully notice the pattern until one rainy afternoon, when he stepped out of a lecture exhausted and overwhelmed, only to find Faifa already waiting beneath the covered walkway outside the building, coffee in one hand and two umbrellas in the other.
"When I walked past your class earlier, you looked tired," Faifa explained casually when Wine stared, "so I assumed intervention might become necessary." The warmth that bloomed instantly through Wine’s chest nearly embarrassed him to death.
"Do you often just appear in places?"
"Only when I want to see someone." Faifa grinned, then held the second umbrella out toward him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The domestic intimacy between them grew exactly like that, quietly, accidentally, through repetition. Shared routines formed before either of them acknowledged them aloud, with Faifa saving him seats in their elective classes, Wine carrying painkillers and allergy medication without being asked, and late-night studying gradually turning into simply existing in the same room together while doing separate things.
The thought frightened Wine in ways he could not properly explain, because somewhere beneath the comfort lived the constant sharp reminder that another version of himself had already lost this, and sometimes that fear became almost unbearable, especially on mornings when new letters arrived.
This one appeared Monday afternoon, tucked carefully between the pages of Wine’s study notes while he packed his bag after class, and the familiar handwriting immediately made tension settle low in his stomach. By now, he had learned to recognise differences in the pages themselves: some looked rushed, others worn from repeated handling, but this one felt strangely careful, like Future Wine had written it slowly. Wine sat alone near the back of the empty classroom before unfolding it.

November 7th
Faifa falls asleep in your dorm room today while pretending to study. There’s an engineering textbook open on his chest, and he insists he’s 'completely awake' around six separate times before passing out anyway. I remember thinking he looked exhausted in a way that frightened me, not dramatic exhaustion, but the quiet kind, the kind people stop noticing because it becomes part of someone permanently.
I woke him up after twenty minutes because he had an afternoon class. He apologises immediately and says, 'Sorry, I didn’t mean to inconvenience you,' then leaves before finishing resting. Wine, let him sleep longer this time. Please. I don’t think he’s sleeping properly at night lately.
You notice something important while he’s asleep. His body relaxes differently in your room. He stops waking at every sound, his breathing evens out, and although it’s subtle, I remember staring at him and realising that safety looked unfamiliar to him.
When he wakes up later, tell him, ‘I’m glad you could rest.’ Don’t dismiss it. I think people spend so long surviving exhaustion that rest eventually starts to feel like something they need permission to take.
- Wine

By evening, Wine had brought Faifa back to his dorm room under the pretence of studying together, because there were no spaces left in the library.
As he opened the door to his dorm room, Wine said quietly, before thinking, "You look tired."
Faifa sighed dramatically. "My electives continue to be a violent campaign against my wellbeing."
"You slept three hours again, didn’t you?"
"Ouch. You don’t beat around the bush anymore, do you?"
"Faifa…"
The use of his name softened something immediately. Wine noticed it happen in real time now, how Faifa reacted whenever concern turned gentle instead of teasing. His expression loosened slightly, his shoulders lowering, like part of him relaxed automatically around softness. "Maybe," Faifa admitted finally. Wine stared at him flatly. Faifa smiled sheepishly. "I brought coffee?"
"That’s not a solution."
"No, but it does work wonders for keeping me alive between lectures."
"You say that about caffeine constantly."
"And I’m right every time."
Wine laughed softly, motioning toward the spare chair beside his desk. "Sit down before you fall over." Faifa obeyed without argument this time, which Wine didn’t know was a good thing or something to be worried about.

Wine worked through notes while Faifa spread engineering diagrams dramatically across the floor beside the bed, muttering occasional complaints under his breath whenever something didn’t match up. At some point, music started playing softly from somebody else’s room down the hallway, and somewhere around two hours later, the room grew very quiet.
When Wine slowly looked up from his laptop, Faifa had fallen asleep sitting half-curled against the side of Wine’s bed, textbook open across his chest, pencil still loosely tangled between his fingers. The letter had been right again.
Even asleep, Faifa looked exhausted, not with ordinary tiredness or temporary fatigue, but with a deeper kind, as though his body had forgotten that rest could be something gentle rather than a necessary survival.
Wine set his laptop aside quietly. Faifa didn’t wake. That alone startled Wine. Usually, he reacted to movement immediately, his body conditioned to alertness even when tired, but here there was nothing. His breathing remained slow and even, his shoulders relaxed fully for once.
Future Wine’s words echoed heavily in the silence: safety looked unfamiliar on him. The realisation twisted painfully through Wine’s chest, because suddenly it became impossible not to wonder where Faifa slept deeply, when he ever fully rested, how long exhaustion had become permanent enough that everybody accepted it as part of him, and perhaps worst of all, why being here made such a visible difference.
Wine glanced toward the clock eventually. Faifa’s afternoon class had already started twenty minutes ago. In the original timeline, this was apparently where he woke him, and the thought alone made guilt settle heavily inside him. Instead, quietly, Wine reached for the blanket folded at the foot of his bed and draped it gently across Faifa’s shoulders. The movement barely stirred him, only drawing a faint sleepy sound from beneath his breath before he settled deeper against the mattress edge.
Wine thought his heart might genuinely stop, so instead of waking him, he stayed. He studied quietly, lowered the desk lamp as the sun fully set outside, and answered texts while trying not to make too much noise. Through all of it, Faifa slept, one hour, then another, long enough that campus noise softened toward evening quiet, and there was a painful moment when Wine knew with certainty that this might genuinely be the deepest sleep Faifa had experienced in weeks.

Nearly two hours later, Faifa stirred, slowly this time, with no violent panic and no immediate tension, just sleepy blinking while sunlight faded orange through the windows around them. For several long seconds, he looked genuinely confused. Then his gaze landed on Wine, and immediately he said, "Oh my god."
Wine laughed softly at Faifa’s reaction. "What?"
"I fell asleep?"
Wine hummed absentmindedly, unbothered.
"What time is it?"
"Almost seven."
Visible horror crossed Faifa’s face. "I missed class."
"You needed sleep."
"I literally came here to study."
"You did study," Wine replied solemnly. "Spiritually."
Faifa groaned dramatically before rubbing both hands over his face. Then, softer, he said, "Sorry."
"Don’t apologise."
"But I…"
"I’m glad you could rest." The sentence silenced him instantly, exactly like the letter promised.
Faifa looked toward him slowly, exhaustion still lingering softly across his face now that sleep had stripped away some of the usual defences, and for one terrifying second, emotion flickered visibly there, something vulnerable enough that Wine almost looked away. Then quietly, before seeming to fully think about it, Faifa said, "I always sleep easier next to you."

The room went completely still. Wine stopped breathing. Faifa froze too, awareness hitting his face instantly afterwards, heat blooming visibly across his cheeks while his eyes widened slightly in horror at his own confession. "I…" Wine’s face burned violently because there was no teasing in the statement, no flirtation, only exhausted honesty, and somehow that made it infinitely worse.
Faifa stood abruptly from the floor, clutching his textbook against his chest like emotional armour. "I should go." Wine opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Faifa laughed softly then, embarrassed, fond, painfully warm. "See you later, Wine." Before Wine could recover enough to answer properly, he slipped quietly from the dorm room, leaving silence behind him.
Wine sat motionless for several seconds afterwards, staring at the closed door while his heartbeat continued trying violently to escape his chest. Helplessly, he buried his burning face in both hands, because somewhere between the letters, the rooftop, and sleepy confessions whispered accidentally in soft evening light, this had stopped resembling simple concern entirely, and the most terrifying part was that Faifa might be starting to fall for Wine.

After the afternoon, Faifa fell asleep in his room, something between them shifted quietly into softness neither of them fully acknowledged aloud. Not dramatic softness, nothing obvious enough for other people to comment on directly. Instead, it revealed itself through instinct, the kind built slowly through comfort and repetition until affection stopped feeling performative and became habit.
Wine’s presentation slides glowed accusingly across the laptop screen in front of him. It was nearly midnight already, yet every time he practised speaking aloud, his chest tightened worse instead of better. His presentation was tomorrow morning, which meant naturally his brain had chosen tonight to spiral completely. Wine rubbed both hands down his face tiredly before checking his phone again.
Wine: Still awake? - 12:17 am
The message had barely sat delivered for a few seconds before the typing bubble appeared immediately beneath it.
Faifa: For you always
Faifa: Is everything okay?
Wine stared briefly at the screen, then typed back:
Wine: I have a presentation tomorrow but I don’t think I’m ready.
Three dots appeared instantly, then two seconds later, his phone rang. Wine blinked before answering.
"Hello?"
"You’re overthinking," Faifa informed him immediately. The warmth of his voice settled through Wine embarrassingly fast.
"Probably, but I really can't get rid of these nerves. I keep thinking I’m going to mess up somehow."
"Mhm. Tell me about the topic for your presentation."
Wine explained weakly while slumping sideways across his bed, one hand still tangled in presentation notes. On the other end of the call, Faifa hummed quietly throughout the explanation, occasionally interrupting only to ask questions or point out places where Wine sounded more confident than he realised.
The conversation drifted naturally, from presentations to terrible professors, to absolutely nothing important at all. Yet somehow, as Faifa kept talking softly through the speaker, Wine’s anxiety slowly unravelled into something quieter, safer.
"You know," Faifa murmured eventually, "you always sound nervous before things you’re actually good at."
"That doesn’t even make sense."
"It does when it's about you."
Wine laughed softly beneath his breath.
"You should sleep," Faifa said after a while, his voice quieter now too.
"So should you."
"Hypocrisy builds character."
"Pretty sure that’s not true."
A soft laugh crackled gently through the phone then silence settled, not awkward, just tired. Wine curled further into his blanket while listening absentmindedly to the faint sounds of Faifa moving around on the other end of the line, drawers opening, fabric rustling softly, the familiar comfort of another person existing quietly beside you even through distance.
When his eyelids grew heavy, Wine spoke up again, "Faifa?"
"Hm?"
"Thanks."
The response came immediately. "Always."
Sometime later, while sleep blurred slowly through him, Wine vaguely heard Faifa whisper through the phone, "Goodnight, Wine." The call disconnected only after Faifa heard his breathing settle fully into sleep.

One Friday afternoon, the perfect 10 liners crowded around the cafeteria tables while conversation dissolved into overlapping noise around them. Faifa was smiling, talking, laughing, and responding, but something about it felt wrong today. Wine noticed almost immediately. The smiles came a little slower, the laughter sounded slightly too light, and his shoulders remained tense even while joking. Exhaustion again, only deeper this time, like social interaction itself had become work, yet his performance was perfect.
Wine watched him quietly for several minutes while the conversation around them continued, then, without fully thinking it through, he pulled one earbud from his headphones and held it out.
Faifa blinked. "What's this for?"
"Watch this with me."
"What is it?"
"It’s a documentary."
"You want to watch a documentary together now?" Still, he accepted the earbud.
Wine shifted his phone between them, opening some random animal documentary he’d been halfway watching earlier. Faifa leaned slightly closer automatically so they could both see the screen properly, and almost instantly, he relaxed. The difference startled Wine, not dramatically, just enough. His shoulders loosened, his expression softened, and the constant attentiveness faded slightly from his face while his focus settled entirely on the quiet little world playing through the headphones between them. No pressure to keep conversations alive, no expectation to perform energy, just existing beside each other silently.
At one point, the narrator said something ridiculous about penguins, and Faifa laughed softly beneath his breath, his shoulder bumping lightly against Wine’s. The warmth of him lingered. Across the table, Gun noticed first. Wine caught the exact moment his expression changed, not teasing, something gentler. Beside him, Arm followed Gun’s gaze before smiling faintly into his drink. Even Arc looked toward them briefly, and suddenly Wine realised the entire group had gone subtly quieter around them, like they understood something important about the scene unfolding naturally between them.

Faifa remained completely unaware, still watching the documentary peacefully beside Wine while the earbud wire tangled loosely between them. For the first time all afternoon, he looked genuinely rested. The realisation hit Wine painfully hard because, apparently, comfort for Faifa sometimes looked as simple as being allowed to exist quietly without entertaining anyone. Wine swallowed carefully before turning the volume slightly higher. Beside him, Faifa smiled faintly without looking away from the screen.
The nights grew colder, the evening wind sharpening around campus pathways while students started layering hoodies beneath jackets between classes.
Wine quickly noticed that Faifa handled the cold poorly, probably because exhaustion had lately hollowed him out from the inside; he skipped meals, and poor sleep weakened everything else. Still, Faifa never complained directly. Of course, he didn’t.

One evening after late study sessions, the group walked together towards the bar while cold wind swept sharply through the streets around them. Faifa laughed quietly at something Gun said, then shivered, tiny, almost invisible. A few moments later, it happened again. Without thinking too hard about it, Wine stopped walking and tugged his hoodie over his head.
Faifa blinked in confusion. "What are you doing?"
"Put this on."
"No. You’ll freeze." Wine rolled his eyes before holding the hoodie stubbornly toward him.
"Then give me your jacket."
"My jacket’s thinner."
"I don’t get cold as easily as you do." That part was true.
Faifa hesitated visibly, and for one brief moment, Wine recognised something important: accepting care still looked difficult for him, like agreeing might somehow burden someone else.
Eventually Faifa sighed. "You’re stubborn."
"You noticed?"
"Unfortunately." Still, he slowly removed his jacket and handed it over.
As the fabric shifted away from his arms, Wine noticed immediately that the bruises on his arms were healing. The faint yellowing marks near his wrists had faded significantly now; the scrapes across his hands had mostly disappeared, too, and, perhaps most importantly, there were no obvious new injuries. Relief hit Wine so suddenly it almost startled him, small, fragile, but real, like visual proof that maybe things truly were changing little by little.
Faifa pulled Wine’s oversized hoodie over his head while Wine shrugged into the thinner jacket in exchange. The sight nearly destroyed him emotionally because Faifa suddenly looked impossibly cosy; the hood rested messily against dark hair. He looked warm, safe, mesmerising enough that Wine had to look away briefly before his expression betrayed him completely.
Beside him, Faifa smiled knowingly. "Your clothes suit me."
Wine snorted softly. "Yours suits me too."
Faifa laughed immediately, real laughter, bright against the cold night air. Wine walked beside him, carrying the unbearable warmth of that sound somewhere deep inside his chest. These the late-night phone calls, the shared headphones, the jacket exchanges beneath cold evening skies. Future Wine had never described them, which meant they existed because of choices made here, now, Wine was building memories untouched by loss piece by piece.

A week later, the mentor group gathered again beneath the covered seating area outside the campus café while evening settled softly around them. Warm yellow lights glowed overhead while distant rain threatened somewhere beyond the city skyline.
The atmosphere felt easy tonight. Gun rambled about random topics, Armand Arc seemed to be in their own world, and Yotha sat half-listening while scrolling his phone. Besides Wine, Faifa moved to sit next to him, holding a plastic cup of milk tea. Wine noticed instantly, and his stomach tightened automatically before he even processed why.
Then slowly, carefully, Faifa looked toward him. "Wine?" For the first time since meeting him, hesitation crossed Faifa’s face, not fear exactly, but caution, like asking for something still felt unfamiliar. "The auntie at the café messed up my order," he admitted softly. "She already made this before I realised." Wine blinked once. Faifa looked down briefly before continuing. "I didn’t want to refuse it because she looked happy, offering me her favourite special…" The sentence trailed quietly, and suddenly Wine understood: he had bought the drink anyway because disappointing someone felt worse to him than risking himself. Before Wine could respond, Faifa added quickly, "It’s okay if not, I just thought maybe we could swap drinks"
The answer came instantly. "Sure! Let's swap." Faifa stopped speaking. Wine reached forward casually and traded their drinks without hesitation. "There," he said lightly. "We couldn’t let the drink auntie be upset, how else are we meant to get discounts in the future?"
The joke landed perfectly. Relief softened visibly through Faifa’s entire posture, then slowly, carefully, he smiled, not polite gratitude, something smaller "You really don’t mind?"
Wine shook his head once before taking a deliberate sip from the milk tea. "See, unlike you, I can enjoy a milk tea with no consequences."

Faifa laughed softly beneath his breath. Somehow, the sound carried something deeper tonight, because this was different. Not Wine noticing something wrong first, not intervening automatically, Faifa had asked, quietly, hesitantly, but still asked. The realisation settled inside Wine’s chest because he understood now how significant that was. Trust, for Faifa, did not arrive dramatically. It arrived through tiny moments where he slowly learned that needing something would not make people leave. Faifa relaxed visibly while drinking safely from the swapped cup and sitting there beneath soft café lights while easy laughter drifted warmly around the table, Wine realised something terrifying: He was building a life around loving him.

By late November, Wine had begun understanding something frightening about loneliness: it did not always look like being alone. Sometimes it looked like laughter loud enough to fill entire rooms, remembering everybody’s favourite drinks, smiling first so nobody noticed how tired you were. Loneliness survived inside love so quietly that even the people surrounding it mistook it for personality, and increasingly, Wine realised that was exactly what had happened to Faifa.
The awareness came slowly, painfully, through patterns too small for most people to notice individually: the way Faifa always sat nearest exits during gatherings, as though prepared to leave before overstaying; how he apologised immediately after moments of vulnerability, even tiny ones; how every act of care directed toward him still seemed to produce visible surprise somewhere behind his eyes. Worst of all was the way he withdrew slightly after receiving comfort, like some part of him still expected affection was temporary.
The next letter arrived on a Tuesday evening. He found it while studying alone in the library, fluorescent lights buzzing softly overhead.

November 20th
Gun asks everyone what their biggest fear is tonight. It starts as a joke. Arm says something about losing Arc, Yotha says people touching his food, and everybody laughs. Faifa laughs too. Then, after a while, he says, ‘Do you ever worry people only love you when you’re easy?’
The room goes quiet, real quiet, not because people don’t care, but because everybody thinks he’s joking at first. He laughs awkwardly and changes the subject before anyone answers properly. I remember laughing too, not because I thought it was funny, but because I panicked hearing him say painful things casually.
Wine, that was one of the first times he almost admitted it aloud. Don’t let the moment disappear this time. Don’t rush to reassure him either, just answer honestly. I think he spent years watching people choose comfort over truth.
- Wine

Movie night happened two days later in Arm and Arc’s apartment near campus. By now, these gatherings had become routine enough that Wine no longer felt nervous showing up. Shoes accumulated naturally near the doorway as Arm complained dramatically whenever people ignored his movie choices. Tonight, the apartment smelled faintly of popcorn, and string lights glowed softly around the living room. Wine arrived slightly late after lectures and immediately spotted Faifa already there, curled sideways in the corner of the couch beneath one of Arc’s oversized blankets, knees drawn loosely toward his chest while Gun talked animatedly beside him.
The moment Faifa noticed Wine entering, something in his face softened instantly.
"You’re late," Faifa informed him lightly.
"You stole my usual seat."
"You weren't here to claim it." Wine laughed softly while dropping beside him anyway, their shoulders brushing automatically beneath the blanket edge. The contact felt natural now. Movie night unfolded as it usually does. Nobody paid proper attention to the film. Gun kept narrating scenes dramatically, Arm argued with characters onscreen as they could hear him, and Yotha threatened to mute everyone at least four separate times. Throughout all of it, Faifa remained warm and easy beside Wine, laughing quietly, stealing pieces of popcorn from Wine’s bowl, occasionally leaning closer to comment on something ridiculous happening onscreen. Wine still noticed the familiar signs: the tiredness hidden beneath smiles, how quickly Faifa checked everyone else’s reactions before speaking, the way he kept steering conversations toward others whenever attention lingered on him for too long. Loneliness disguised as social instinct.

Around halfway through the second movie, Gun stretched dramatically across the carpet.
"Okay," he announced. "Important question." Arc sighed immediately. "If you were in the film, what do you think they would see when looking into your biggest fear?"
The room erupted instantly.
"Being apart from Arc," Arm answered dramatically before anybody else could speak.
"You fall asleep in my arms every night, I don’t think I can ever go anywhere," Arc replied.
"Ooo, how romantic."
Yotha barely looked up from his phone. "People touching my food."
"That’s not a fear," Gun complained. "It’s a threat."
Laughter spread easily through the room.
Next to Wine, Faifa smiled too, but Wine’s chest had already tightened painfully because the scene matched the letter almost perfectly, and suddenly he found himself watching Faifa instead of listening to the others, waiting. Softly, after the laughter faded slightly, Faifa asked, "Do you ever fear people only love you when you’re easy?"
The room fell quiet immediately, not dramatic silence, just confusion at first, because the sentence sounded casual, almost thoughtful.
Gun blinked. "Huh?"
Faifa laughed, shaking his head. "Never mind," he said lightly. "That sounded sadder out loud." There it was, the immediate retreat after vulnerability.
Wine saw it happen in real time now, the instinctive covering over of emotional honesty before it became inconvenient for others. In the original timeline, this was apparently where everyone laughed nervously and moved on. Wine understood why. The question hurt, not in a loud, obvious way, but in the quiet, devastating way truth hurts when someone says it too casually. Beside him, Faifa smiled toward the television again like the moment had already disappeared.
"I think people should love you even when it's difficult." The words escaped before he could overthink them. Silence settled again, real silence this time. Faifa turned toward him slowly, shocked, as if nobody had ever answered the question directly before. Wine forced himself not to look away. "You shouldn’t have to earn being cared about by making yourself smaller," he continued quietly. Across the room, nobody interrupted. Even Gun had gone unusually still. Faifa stared at him for several long seconds, then laughed softly beneath his breath, though this time the sound cracked slightly around the edges.
"You make everything sound easy," he murmured.
"No," Wine replied gently. "I think you make it sound impossible." The honesty in the room felt almost unbearably intimate.

Eventually, Arm rescued the atmosphere intentionally by throwing popcorn directly at Gun’s face. Conversation returned slowly, and laughter followed eventually, but something had shifted. Wine felt it. More importantly, Faifa felt it too, because throughout the rest of the night, he stayed impossibly close beside Wine, shoulders touching beneath the blanket, knees pressed lightly together, silent in a way that no longer felt withdrawn, almost thoughtful, as if he were carrying the conversation around carefully inside himself.
Later that night, after everyone else finally began drifting toward sleep or late-night noodles, Wine stepped quietly onto the apartment balcony for air. Cold wind brushed softly against his face. Behind him, the balcony door slid open gently, and Faifa stepped outside wearing one of Arc’s hoodies wrapped loosely around himself.

"You disappeared," he said quietly. Wine smiled faintly.
"Needed air."
Faifa nodded once before moving beside him against the railing. For a while, neither spoke. Traffic hummed distantly below them, then quietly, Faifa said, "I wasn’t joking earlier." Wine looked toward him as Faifa kept his eyes fixed on the city lights instead. "When I said that thing during the movie." The vulnerability in his voice settled heavily between them. Wine stayed silent, waiting, not pushing. "I think…" Faifa took in a breath. "I think I got good at being easy for people." Wine, understood instantly what Faifa meant: easy to comfort, to rely on, never too emotional or too difficult, never needing too much.
"I don’t think anyone should have to earn love by exhausting themselves," Wine said softly.
Faifa smiled faintly. "You say things like that so naturally."
"Because I mean them."
Faifa went quiet beside him, exhaustion lingered visibly beneath his eyes again tonight. "My mum used to get upset when I cried." Wine’s breath caught. The confession arrived so suddenly, so matter-of-factly, that for a moment he could only stare. "She said I made things harder when I was emotional," Faifa continued softly. "So eventually I stopped doing it around people."
The loneliness in those words felt ancient, like something learned so young it became permanent.
Faifa, noticing how Wine seemed to go quiet at his words, tries to lighten the mood again, laughing softly, "I’m ruining movie night. We should head back in"
"No," Wine answered immediately. "You’re not ruining anything" For the first time all evening, Faifa looked directly at him, really looked. The expression in his eyes felt unbearably fragile, like someone standing very carefully at the edge of trust.
"You don’t seem scared of me when I’m sad." The sentence nearly destroyed him, because Faifa expected him to withdraw to leave him when he showed emotions. Wine stepped closer before thinking too hard about it, not enough to overwhelm, just enough that they could feel each other's warmth pressed against each other's side.
"I don’t think sadness makes people difficult," he said softly.
Faifa’s eyes closed briefly, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded smaller somehow. "Tired people usually do."
Wine looked at him carefully, at the exhaustion woven permanently beneath kindness, at the years of loneliness hidden beneath easy smiles. "You don’t have to become easier to deserve people staying."
Silence followed immediately, not empty, but too full of emotion for words. Faifa’s breathing shook once, tiny, almost invisible. "You make me want to believe that."
The confession settled directly into Wine’s chest like warmth and grief tangled together, because for the first time, he realised something terrifying: Faifa did not fundamentally believe he was lovable once he stopped making himself convenient, and suddenly Wine understood the true shape of his loneliness, not being abandoned, but expecting to be.

The message from Faifa’s mother arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, and Wine only realised something was wrong because Faifa stopped replying, not immediately, but in a way that slowly turned ordinary silence into something uneasy.
At first, it seemed ordinary enough. They had spent most of the morning together, drifting between lectures and coffee shops. Faifa had stolen half of Wine’s breakfast despite claiming not to be hungry, and Wine had quietly counted that as progress, because at least he ate something.
They had been sitting outside the engineering building, while Faifa complained about project deadlines and absentmindedly doodled in the margins of Wine’s notes. Around lunch, Faifa’s phone rang. Wine still remembered the exact moment. The warmth drained first, then his posture straightened subtly, his expression smoothing carefully into neutrality before he even answered the call.
"Mum," Faifa said softly.
The conversation itself remained quiet, mostly one-sided, Faifa listening, nodding, apologising.
"No, I understand."
"It’s okay."
"I’m not upset."
"I know you’re busy." Each sentence sounded smaller than the last.
By the time the call ended, Faifa looked exhausted in a way Wine had not seen in weeks, not physical exhaustion, but something heavier, older, like the version of himself he became around his mother still existed permanently somewhere beneath his skin.
"You okay?" Wine asked gently once the silence stretched too long.
Faifa blinked once before smiling automatically. "Mhm. I’m fine." The lie arrived so fast it barely sounded conscious but before Wine could push further, Faifa stood abruptly.
"I should go finish my project drafts before my professor kills me." The joke sounded practised, too quick, and for the first time in weeks, Wine watched him leave with a terrible, familiar feeling crawling beneath his ribs, like watching someone retreat behind walls he thought had started coming down.
The letter arrived that night, folded beneath Wine’s dorm room door. The sight alone made dread settle instantly in his chest, because by now he understood the pattern well enough to fear certain kinds of silence.

November 24th
Faifa's mother called yesterday. I didn’t hear most of the conversation, only the aftermath. I remember him getting quieter afterwards, smaller somehow, like he’s trying not to take up space again. I thought it felt like watching somebody disappear in real time.
Today, he falls back into old habits. He skips meals, stops correcting people when things bother him, smiles too quickly, and apologises constantly.
There’s something else. During dinner, someone orders the wrong drink. It contains dairy. Faifa realises immediately, but instead of saying anything, he drinks it anyway because the waitress already looks stressed, and he doesn’t want to inconvenience her. His hands shake afterwards, and he keeps apologising while feeling sick.
Wine this matters. Please don’t get angry at him. I know you’ll want to, but people don’t neglect themselves because they think they deserve pain. Usually, they do it because somewhere along the way, they learned their needs hurt other people. Tell him, he's allowed to inconvenience people if it keeps him safe.
- Wine

Wine read the final paragraph twice, then once more. His chest ached terribly now, because suddenly everything about the phone call made sense: the shrinking, the apologising, the carefulness. Faifa wasn’t just upset; he was reverting, like one conversation with his mother had dragged old survival instincts back to the surface.
The cafeteria was crowded the next evening. The Perfect 10 liners occupied their usual corner near the windows, surrounded by trays and half-finished drinks. At first glance, everything looked normal, but then he noticed Faifa. Wine watched him give away half his fries without touching most of the rest, watched him insist he ‘wasn’t that hungry anyway,’ watched him apologise three separate times in under ten minutes for things nobody blamed him for. Each one hurt because it felt like losing progress he had only just begun to make.
Faifa laughed softly at something Arm said, but even the laugh sounded tired. Then the drinks arrived. Wine noticed the problem immediately, milk tea, and Faifa noticed too. The flicker of recognition crossed his face so briefly most people would have missed it entirely, but Wine saw, and more importantly, he saw the hesitation afterwards, the calculation: should he say something, would it bother the waitress, would fixing it create inconvenience?
Then, before Wine could stop him, Faifa took a sip. Wine’s stomach dropped instantly.
"Faifa!"
"It’s okay," Faifa interrupted quickly. "I’ll just drink a little." The words came too fast, too practised, like self-sacrifice had become automatic again.
Within twenty minutes, Wine noticed the reaction starting, subtle at first, Faifa rubbing absently at his hands beneath the table, his breathing slightly uneven, the faint tension settling through his shoulders. Then came the shaking, tiny, almost invisible, but enough.
Wine turned toward him fully. "You’re reacting."
"I’m fine."
"No, you’re not, take your meds." The sharpness in his voice made Faifa blink, and the apology came immediately.
"Sorry."

Wine felt something twist painfully in his chest, not anger, but heartbreak, because even now, while feeling sick, Faifa’s first instinct was apologising for being inconvenient.
Carefully, Wine reached over and took the drink from his hands. "You’re allowed to inconvenience people if it keeps you safe." The sentence landed heavily between them.
Faifa went completely still. Across the table, the conversation gradually softened as the others noticed the shift in the atmosphere. Wine kept his voice gentle, open. "You don’t have to hurt yourself to avoid bothering people"
Faifa stared down at the table for several long seconds, then finally said, very quietly, "She used to get upset when I refused food." The confession shattered something inside Wine immediately, no dramatics, no explanation, just old truths. Faifa laughed softly trying to ease the air, but the sound cracked badly around the edges. "She’d already made it," he murmured. "So if I said no, she’d think I didn’t appreciate it."
Wine couldn’t breathe properly for a second, because suddenly he could picture it too clearly, a child forcing himself to eat unsafe things so adults wouldn’t feel rejected, learning slowly that discomfort was easier than disappointing someone. Wine swallowed hard before speaking again, softer this time. "You deserve to feel safe too."
Faifa’s expression collapsed for just a second before smiling again, smaller now, more fragile. "I’m okay," he whispered. The lie hurt worse than usual because Wine knew suddenly that part of Faifa genuinely believed this counted as being okay.

Later that evening, Wine and Faifa walked toward the car park. Faifa remained unusually quiet beside him, not withdrawn, just tired, and now that Wine knew what caused it, the exhaustion felt heavier somehow. At one point, while adjusting the sleeves of his hoodie against the cold, the fabric rode briefly up his forearm. Wine stopped walking immediately. A burn mark stretched angrily across the inside of Faifa’s arm, red, poorly treated, already beginning to scar around the edges, too new, too deep.
"Faifa." The softness in his voice made Faifa look up, understanding what Wine had seen. He tugged the sleeve back down, too late. "What happened?"
Faifa looked away. "I burned myself cooking."
"When?"
"Last Night." The same day, his mother called. Wine understood instantly, and suddenly grief hit him so sharply he almost felt sick himself, because for weeks now the bruises had faded, the cuts healed, the careless injuries had slowly stopped appearing. Wine had allowed himself to believe things were improving. Then one phone call happened, and Faifa immediately stopped taking care of himself again. The realisation felt devastating, not because healing disappeared entirely, but because it proved how fragile it still was.
"Did you treat it at all?" Wine asked softly. Faifa hesitated. That alone answered enough. Wine closed his eyes briefly. When he spoke again, his voice sounded painfully gentle. "You deserve to take care of yourself even when you’re hurting."
Faifa's voice was quiet beneath his breath. "I’m trying."
The same words from the retreat night, only this time they sounded exhausted instead of hopeful. Wine’s chest ached unbearably. "You don’t have to become easier to deserve care," he murmured. Faifa looked at him then, really looked, and for the first time all evening, his expression cracked fully, not dramatic crying, not a visible breakdown, worse, pure exhaustion, like he was suddenly too tired to keep pretending he believed his own survival instincts made sense anymore.
"My mum always said I was sensitive," he admitted quietly. Wine felt physically ill hearing it, because of course she did. Of course, someone had taught Faifa that pain itself was the problem instead of the harm causing it, and suddenly Wine understood why Faifa treated his own suffering like something embarrassing to manage privately. He had been taught to.
Wine reached toward his sleeve. "Can I see it?" Faifa hesitated, then slowly rolled the fabric upward again. The burn looked painful, angry red skin surrounded by smaller, untreated marks, a scar already beginning where proper care should have happened sooner.

Without thinking, Wine touched very lightly beside the injury, not enough to hurt, just enough to ground him. Faifa went completely still. "You should’ve told someone," Wine whispered. The sadness in his voice seemed to affect Faifa more than anger would have, because suddenly his expression crumpled slightly around the edges.
"I didn’t think it mattered that much." There it was again, the terrible shape of his loneliness, not believing pain mattered unless it inconvenienced other people first.
Wine swallowed hard against the emotion rising painfully into his throat. Then, quietly: "It matters to me."
The words settled heavily between them beneath the cold November night, and beside him, Faifa looked suddenly, devastatingly close to crying. Wine held his arm gently near the wrist while studying the burn with quiet concentration.
"You really should’ve applied medicine to this properly," Wine murmured softly.
Faifa laughed faintly beneath his breath. "Sorry."
Faifa went quiet, and suddenly, standing there beneath cold streetlights with his injured arm resting carefully in Wine’s hands, he looked painfully young somehow, not childish, just tired in a way nobody should have been at nineteen. Wine before overthinking himself out of it, lifted Faifa’s arm slightly closer and blew softly across the burn.
Cool air brushed lightly over the injured skin. Faifa froze instantly, and Wine felt the exact moment his breathing caught. The reaction startled him enough that he glanced up automatically. "Even if I wasn’t there when you got hurt, I’ll make sure it heals properly now."
Faifa didn’t move, didn’t speak, so Wine smiled softly and added, almost shyly, "I blew on it too. That means it won’t hurt as much anymore." Something in Faifa’s expression broke completely, his eyes shimmered suddenly beneath the streetlights while he looked down at Wine, still holding his injured arm with impossible care, like he genuinely did not know what to do with tenderness that asked for nothing back.

Faifa swallowed once before speaking, his voice very small. "...Can I hug you?" Wine stopped breathing for a moment, because this was the second time Faifa had asked him for something instead of quietly enduring alone, and somehow that mattered enough to feel sacred. Gently, Wine shifted the arm he still held, guiding Faifa’s hand carefully toward his own waist, resting there, inviting, then stepped forward first, wrapping both arms around him softly.
The response was immediate. Faifa pulled him in tightly enough that Wine nearly stumbled from the force of it, arms winding around him with desperate warmth while he buried his face into the curve of Wine’s neck, and suddenly Wine understood something devastating: Faifa hugged like someone afraid comfort might disappear if he loosened his grip. Wine held him tighter immediately, one hand moving instinctively upward into his hair while the other remained secure around his waist. Against him, Faifa trembled once, not crying loudly, just shaking quietly with exhaustion and relief and years of loneliness finally finding somewhere safe enough to soften.
Wine closed his eyes tightly. The warmth of him felt unbearably precious. Faifa’s voice came out muffled and soft against his neck after a long silence. "Thank you," he whispered.
Wine’s chest tightened. "For what?"
Another pause, then very quietly, "For everything." The words cracked apart around the edges, and before Wine could respond, Faifa added something even softer. "With you… I feel like a person."
In that moment, Wine realised Faifa had spent so long surviving as what other people needed him to be that somewhere along the way, he stopped feeling fully human himself.
Emotion rose violently in Wine’s throat. He tightened his arms around him instinctively, holding him closer against the cold night air. "To me," Wine whispered carefully, "you have such a precious soul, and I want to protect the body that holds it."
The silence that followed immediately was heavy, tender and almost unbearably intimate.

As time went on Wine found the problem with loving someone quietly was that eventually the fear started leaking through the cracks. Wine did not notice it happening at first, because every change in his behaviour felt reasonable when viewed individually.
He reminded Faifa to eat if lunch went untouched, checked whether he had brought medication before long campus events, watched his expression carefully whenever his mother called, and texted him after midnight, reminding him to try to get a couple of hours of sleep.
None of it felt controlling to Wine. It felt instinctive, like reaching automatically toward something fragile before it could fall. However, fear slowly distorted tenderness, and over time, without realising it, Wine had started watching Faifa too closely, not because he thought he was weak, but because somewhere deep inside him lived the unbearable knowledge that another version of himself had already lost him once.
The next letter arrived on a Monday morning.

December 5th
I remember fighting with Faifa today, not loudly, because quiet hurt lasts longer sometimes. The problem wasn’t my care, but my fear.
I started watching him from a distance, too scared to say anything, but constantly checking whether he had eaten, looking for new injuries, watching his mood shift, asking where he was going, and checking whether he had slept. I thought I was helping him, protecting him, but Wine, Faifa noticed, and because of who he is, because of how he grew up, he didn’t see concern first. He saw himself becoming something fragile people had to manage carefully, something exhausting.
During the fight he said, ‘You look at me like I’m about to disappear.’ I didn’t know what to say, so I told him, ‘It’s because I’m scared you will.’ The silence afterwards changed everything.
He apologised later, and you apologised too, but I need you to understand something terrible: that apology never fully fixed the wound I made that day. Even though he still loved me, some part of Faifa never completely stopped feeling watched instead of held. Please make him understand your care is love, not fear. You don’t want to fix him, you want to stand beside him. There’s a difference. Tell him before the silence grows too large again.
- Wine

Wine finally understood something horrifying: his fear might hurt Faifa almost as much as neglect once had. Not intentionally, but if Faifa already believed he became difficult to love whenever he struggled, then Wine constantly monitoring him could easily feel like proof.
The fight happened three days later, not explosively, and that was the worst part. Everything about the afternoon began normally enough. Their group occupied several pushed-together library tables while the thoughts of upcoming exams slowly stressed everyone more than usual.
Wine noticed Faifa rubbing his eyes tiredly, the untouched sandwich beside his laptop.

At one point Wine reached over absentmindedly and slid the untouched sandwich slightly closer toward him. "You should eat." The words came gently. Still, something changed, tiny but unmistakable.
Faifa’s fingers paused against the keyboard, and after several seconds he said, "I know."
Wine noticed the stiffness immediately, but before he could say anything else, Gun groaned loudly from across the table, and the moment dissolved, at least temporarily.
Hours later, after the others slowly dispersed toward evening classes, only Wine and Faifa remained in the quiet back corner of the library. Faifa looked exhausted tonight, the deep kind again, and Wine watched him rub absently at his wrist beneath his hoodie sleeve. Then Faifa said quietly, "You’re doing it again."
Wine blinked. "Hm?"
"Watching me." The words settled softly between them, not angry, which somehow made them worse.
Wine’s stomach tightened immediately. "I’m not…"
"You are." Faifa finally looked up from his notes then, and there was no bitterness in his expression, only tiredness. "You keep checking if I’ve eaten, or slept, or whether I have any new injuries."
Wine’s chest hurt instantly because hearing the list aloud suddenly made him sound overbearing in a way he never intended. "I just care about you."
"I know." Faifa did not sound reassured. He sounded careful, and suddenly Wine understood that this conversation had been building quietly for weeks. Faifa looked down at the table again before speaking more softly. "Sometimes it feels like you’re waiting for me to fall apart." The sentence hit like physical pain.
"No," Wine answered immediately, but emotion sharpened his voice unintentionally, and Faifa flinched slightly anyway.
"You look at me like I’m about to disappear." There it was, the line from the letter. Wine felt panic rise instantly in his throat. In the original timeline, this was where he answered wrong, where fear spoke louder than love, and suddenly he understood how fragile this moment truly was, because Faifa wasn’t accusing him. He was asking something much more terrifying: was he safe with Wine’s care?

Softly, Wine said, "I notice things because my eyes always go to you first." The words escaped before he could stop them, and Faifa stilled immediately. Wine’s heartbeat thundered violently now. "I’m not watching you because I think you’re fragile," he continued quietly. "I watch you because I can’t help it." Once he started speaking, he couldn’t stop. "When you walk into a room, I notice. When you’re tired, if you laugh differently, when you’re pretending you’re okay, or when you haven’t eaten. Not because I’m trying to manage you." He looked down briefly at his trembling hands before forcing himself to continue. "It’s because I always want to know how you are." Wine swallowed hard. "I don’t want to fix you," he whispered. "I just… want to be near you all the time." There it was, not I love you, but something perhaps more dangerous, because the truth sat naked beneath every word anyway. Across from him, Faifa’s breathing visibly shook once. "I know I’ve been too much lately," Wine said softly. "I know I’ve made you feel watched, and I’m sorry."

Faifa looked away quickly, towards anywhere except directly at Wine. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded frighteningly quiet. "I didn’t think anyone would ever care about me like that, I thought I was getting too much for you." The confession nearly destroyed him, because suddenly Wine understood the deeper truth beneath all of this: Faifa wasn’t upset that he noticed things; he was terrified of what noticing usually became afterwards: distance, withdrawal, love turning conditional once people realised how much pain he carried.

Carefully, Wine reached across the table, not forcing, just offering. After several long seconds, Faifa placed his hand into his, and the contact felt unbearably soft. "You’re not a problem I’m trying to solve," Wine murmured.
Faifa’s eyes closed briefly, and for the first time since the conversation began, some of the tension finally loosened from his shoulders. He laughed weakly beneath his breath. "I thought maybe you were starting to regret how much effort I am." The words physically hurt to hear. Immediately, Wine tightened his hold on his hand.
"You are not hard to love." Emotion flickered visibly across Faifa’s face, sharp enough that he looked away again almost instantly. The library around them remained quiet now, most students already gone for the evening and sitting there beneath warm library lights with Faifa’s hand trembling lightly in his own,

After a while, Faifa laughed softly, small and fragile. "You’re really bad at being subtle"
Wine huffed quietly. "You noticed?"
"Unfortunately." Then finally, Faifa smiled, not the practised social version, but something warmer, softer, a little overwhelmed around the edges. Wine thought distantly that maybe this was what changing the future actually looked like, not avoiding pain entirely, but refusing to let fear speak louder than love.

Wine noticed how their group had shifted to begin caring for Faifa more openly, not obviously, nothing so direct that it felt unnatural, but in small ways he could not stop seeing. Arc slid extra food toward Faifa before anyone mentioned he had skipped breakfast, Gun checked casually, "How’d lectures go, did your professor call on you to answer again?", Yotha watched his younger brother a little too long whenever Faifa grew quiet during conversations, and Arm kept organizing gatherings while somehow always managing to leave an empty seat beside Wine by the time everyone settled down. Individually, none of it meant much. Together, it felt like something quieter, like the people around Faifa had begun instinctively moving closer to him without fully understanding why.
Faifa himself was also changing, not dramatically, still smiling too quickly sometimes, apologising automatically when tired, defaulting towards caring for everybody else first but now there were moments, small, fleeting ones, where he stopped performing constantly. Moments where exhaustion showed openly without immediate shame afterwards, yawning without hiding it, leaning against Wine’s shoulder during long days, accepting food without arguing, and letting silence exist around him without rushing to fill it. Tiny things, but to Wine they felt enormous, because healing, he was learning, did not always arrive loudly. Sometimes it arrived through someone finally allowing themselves to rest for thirty seconds longer than before.
The next letter appeared in his backpack as he was leaving the dorm.

December 7th
We all ate lunch together today. Things between Faifa and me still feel strange after the argument, not distant exactly, just careful, like both of us are trying very hard not to hurt the other again. I remember hating it. The space between us felt wrong after becoming so used to him beside me all the time.
There’s something important you miss at the time. Faifa’s hands won’t stop moving all lunch, tapping, pulling at his sleeves, rearranging straws and napkins, helping younger students with assignments whenever they approach the table. Everybody thinks he just has a lot of energy that day, but Wine, his hands are shaking. He’s overwhelmed, looking for somewhere to put all the feelings he doesn’t know how to carry alone.
I only found out later. His mother called him again that morning, and he’s hurting badly today because of the space between us after the fight, he spends most of lunch pretending he isn’t. Please stay close to him today. I think sometimes people survive loneliness simply because nobody notices they’re struggling before they disappear inside themselves completely.
- Wine

Wine sat still for a long moment after finishing; the careful distance Future Wine described no longer existed between them, not after the library. Wine confessed the truth buried beneath his fear, and Faifa looked at him with softness there instead of uncertainty.
Lunch happened two days later. The cafeteria buzzed loudly beneath the exhaustion of approaching midterms, every table crowded with students balancing assignments beside half-finished meals while warm food smells drifted through the air and beside Wine, Faifa yawned openly. The tiny moment startled him enough that he stopped listening to the conversation briefly, because this was still new. Before, Faifa always hid tiredness automatically, straightening immediately if people noticed, smiling through exhaustion until it stopped looking like exhaustion at all. Now he rubbed one eye sleepily before leaning lightly against Wine’s shoulder for a moment, with no attempt to disguise it. Warmth bloomed painfully through Wine’s chest. Across the table, Arc noticed too, and without comment, he slid an extra container of food toward Faifa.
Faifa blinked lazily toward him. "You’re weirdly aggressive about nutrition lately."
"You’re weirdly bad at staying alive." Gun snorted loudly into his drink. Faifa laughed softly and accepted the food without protest. That startled Wine too. Weeks ago, he would have immediately minimised himself, insisted he wasn’t hungry, and apologised for inconveniencing people; now he simply accepted being cared for. The timeline had begun shifting somewhere deeper than events alone. Faifa himself was changing, slowly learning he did not always have to carry himself alone.

Still, once Wine knew what to look for, he noticed the signs from the letter immediately afterwards. Faifa’s hands were in constant motion, fingers tapping lightly against the table, pulling absently at hoodie sleeves, turning his straw slowly between restless hands. Most people would have interpreted it as energy. Quietly, he asked, "Did your mum call again?"
The movement stopped for half a second, only half, but enough. Faifa looked toward him slowly. "...This morning," he admitted softly.
Before Wine could reply, several nervous first-year students approached the table holding assignment papers. "P’Faifa?" one asked hesitantly. "Could you explain this section again?"
Instinctively, Faifa straightened, warmth softening naturally through his expression. "Sure," shifting slightly to make room. "What part is confusing?" There it was again, that beautiful, painful instinct to care for people no matter how exhausted he felt himself. Faifa explained patiently while the younger students visibly relaxed around him almost immediately. Above the table, he looked completely fine, confident, but beneath it, his hands kept moving, searching unconsciously for grounding.

Then, suddenly, something brushed lightly against Wine’s fingers beneath the table. He froze. Faifa’s hand, tentative, careful, as if instinct had moved before thought fully caught up. Faifa continued speaking calmly to the students, but beneath the table, his hand searched quietly for Wine’s. The realisation nearly stopped Wine’s heart, because this was different. Future Wine never described this, which meant the moment belonged entirely to them, to this changed timeline, to this version of their relationship. Without hesitation, he turned his hand and intertwined their fingers beneath the table, then gently squeezed once. The reaction was instant. Faifa’s breathing softened almost imperceptibly, the restless movement in his other hand slowing gradually, his shoulders loosening just enough for Wine to feel it through their connected fingers, and Wine finally understood Faifa trusted him. Across the table, Gun noticed first, then Arm, then Yotha. None of them interrupted, none joked. Instead, something warm settled quietly across the table, as if everyone instinctively understood the importance of the moment unfolding beneath ordinary conversation. When the students finally thanked Faifa and drifted back into the cafeteria crowd, he still didn’t pull his hand away.
Wine looked toward him carefully. "You okay?"
Faifa stared down at their intertwined fingers for several long seconds before answering quietly, "Better now." The honesty in the sentence nearly destroyed Wine because there was no embarrassment, only trust.

Arm suddenly stood dramatically. "Okay! Wine and Faifa are helping me buy snacks."
Wine blinked. "What?"
"You volunteered."
"When?"
"Just now, quick, you and Faifa should go ahead, I’ll wait here!"
Before Wine could argue further, Gun shoved his backpack toward him. "Go."
The entire thing felt absurdly coordinated. Wine narrowed his eyes suspiciously around the table, but nobody looked guilty enough, except maybe Yotha, who refused eye contact while very obviously hiding amusement. Beside him, Faifa laughed softly beneath his breath, and before standing, he squeezed Wine’s hand once more beneath the table, tiny, warm, deliberate.
As they walked together, Wine glanced sideways toward Faifa. He looked softer lately, still tired, still carrying too much, but softer, like somewhere along the way he had started believing, even if only a little, that he no longer had to survive everything alone.

After the lunch where Faifa reached for his hand beneath the table, something between them softened into frightening intimacy, not dramatic intimacy, nothing officially spoken aloud, but the quiet shape of affection settling naturally into the spaces between them.
Wine began noticing it everywhere now: Faifa finding him automatically after lectures, leaning closer whenever rooms became crowded, resting his head briefly against Wine’s shoulder without embarrassment when exhaustion caught up to him and, perhaps most importantly, he had stopped hiding every moment of tiredness, not completely, but enough. Still, he was struggling. Wine saw it in the small pauses between smiles, in how exhaustion seemed woven directly into his bones lately, no matter how much more he slept. Wine found himself afraid of the silences again, not because Faifa withdrew from him, but because now Wine could tell the difference between when Faifa was quiet peacefully and when he was drowning inside himself.

The evening it happened began ordinarily enough. The mentor group occupied a corner booth at a small restaurant inside a mall just outside campus. Faifa laughed at the conversation, smiled, participated, but Wine noticed immediately that something was wrong; Faifa’s energy seemed thinner tonight, his smiles were delayed half a second too long, and his eyes drifted away from conversations before he pulled himself back in again. Wine’s chest tightened quietly. Halfway through dinner, Faifa’s phone lit up. The shift in him happened instantly, tiny, almost invisible, but Wine saw it anyway: shoulders tightening, expression smoothing carefully blank before he even answered. "I’ll be right back," Faifa murmured softly, then stepped outside.
The warmth of the restaurant felt wrong afterwards. Gun kept talking, Arm kept laughing, but Wine barely heard any of it, because through the windows he could see Faifa standing alone beneath the restaurant awning with one hand pressed tightly over his mouth while listening silently to the phone, and something about the image made dread crawl cold beneath his skin.
The call lasted nearly fifteen minutes. When Faifa finally returned, he smiled immediately, too quickly. "I’m alive," he joked softly while sitting back down. Nobody laughed, because even Gun noticed it this time, the exhaustion sitting visibly beneath the smile.
Yotha watched his younger brother carefully across the table. "You okay?" he asked quietly.
"I’m fine," The lie was obvious to Wine instantly but before anyone could push further, Faifa stood again. "I’m gonna get air for a bit." Leaving before anyone could stop him.

Silence settled heavily over the table afterwards. Arc frowned toward the doorway. Gun looked unusually subdued, and Wine got to his feet. "I’ll go find him." Nobody stopped him. If anything, the others looked relieved, as though they had been waiting for him to say it.
Wine got on the elevator, already knowing where Faifa like to go to clear his thoughts.
Wine approached slowly, careful enough not to startle him. Faifa noticed him anyway. "I forgot I told you that I like hiding on rooftops?" His voice sounded tired, not embarrassed, not defensive, just worn thin. Wine nodded once before sitting beside him quietly, not too close, just near enough that warmth existed between them. For several minutes, neither spoke; Faifa just kept staring outward at the skyline. Wine noticed he looked heavy somehow, like he had been carrying something alone too long. Instead of pushing, trying to ask too many questions, Wine stayed, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, Faifa relaxed slightly beside him.
"You know," he said eventually, his voice quiet against the wind, "when I was younger, I used to think if I became easy enough to love, nobody would leave." The confession settled heavily into the silence between them. Wine stayed still, listening. "That sounds sad when I say it out loud."
"It sounds lonely," Wine answered softly.
Faifa laughed faintly beneath his breath. "Yeah." The sound cracked badly around the edges. Wind pushed lightly against them while the city lights shimmered far below. "My mum used to say I was difficult when I got emotional." Wine’s breath caught subconsciously. "She’d tell me I made things harder when I cried," Faifa continued with a weak smile. "So eventually I just… stopped doing it where people could see." Every word hurt, because suddenly Wine could picture it too clearly: a child learning his sadness inconvenienced people, learning slowly that love felt safer when he needed nothing. Faifa rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "I think after a while, I stopped knowing how to exist around people, honestly." The vulnerability in his voice felt almost unbearable.
"You don’t have to perform around me," Wine said quietly.
Faifa’s breathing visibly shook once. "That’s the problem." Wine looked toward him carefully, and for the first time all evening, Faifa looked genuinely close to breaking. "Being around you feels…" He laughed helplessly. "Too safe sometimes." The confession nearly stopped Wine’s heart. "Safe enough that I stop pretending," Faifa whispered. "And then all this stuff I’ve been carrying just comes up all at once." His voice cracked finally on the last words, tiny, barely audible, but enough.

Carefully, he moved closer, not speaking, not fixing, just resting his shoulder lightly against Faifa’s. Warmth met warmth in the cold night air, and suddenly Faifa broke, not dramatically, but worse, quietly. One shaking breath escaped him before he covered his face with both hands like he was ashamed of it happening at all. Wine reached forward and gently pulled Faifa toward him. This time, there was no resistance. Faifa folded into him almost immediately, arms wrapping tightly around Wine’s middle while his forehead pressed hard against his shoulder, like he was exhausted from holding himself together alone. Wine held him carefully, one hand moving slowly through dark hair while the other rested securely against his back, with no rushing, no empty reassurances, just warmth, safety.
Against him, Faifa trembled quietly. "I’m so tired," he whispered. The words nearly destroyed Wine, not because they sounded dramatic, but because they sounded honest.
Wine tightened his arms around him instinctively. "You don’t have to carry everything alone anymore,"
Faifa laughed weakly against his shoulder. "I don’t even know how not to."
"Then we learn slowly." The we slipped out naturally, but the moment it did, Faifa’s grip tightened around him almost desperately, and suddenly Wine understood something terrifying: Faifa had spent so long surviving isolation that being loved safely felt overwhelming enough to hurt.
After a long silence, Faifa finally whispered, "Sometimes I think if people saw all of me properly, they’d leave."
Wine pulled back just enough to look at him. Cold wind moved softly through the rooftop around them while tears shimmered quietly across Faifa’s exhausted eyes. Gently, Wine brushed damp hair back from his forehead. "I think people leave because they never learned how to stay through difficult things." Faifa stared at him silently. Wine swallowed hard against the emotion tightening his throat. "But I’m still here."
The rooftop fell quiet again afterwards, not empty silence, but the kind that wrapped softly around broken things instead of demanding they heal immediately, with his forehead resting once more against Wine’s shoulder, Faifa finally allowed himself to stop pretending for a little while. While Wine held him beneath the cold December sky, he knew this was no longer about saving Faifa from death; it was about teaching him he deserved to live.

The first time the future fully contradicted itself, Wine thought he had misread the letter. It happened on a quiet Monday morning in early January. Wine had barely slept properly lately, not from panic this time, but because his mind had slowly become conditioned toward listening for his phone in the middle of the night, listening for Faifa, for messages that said,
Faifa: awake?
or
Faifa: Can I come over?
The strange thing was that those messages no longer frightened him in the same way they once had. At first, every moment of vulnerability from Faifa carried terror attached to it, because Wine kept viewing every exhausted confession through the lens of the future death waiting somewhere ahead of them.
By now, he knew how to read the emotional weight of the pages before even opening them. Some carried grief, some regret, some desperation. This one felt frightened.

January 8th
Faifa skips classes for almost a week after today. At first nobody thinks much of it because he keeps texting normally. He says he’s tired, says project deadlines are killing him, that he just needs sleep but Wine, he isolates himself quietly. That’s the frightening thing about him. He disappears politely.
I remember spending most of that week standing outside his condo debating whether I was becoming overbearing. I should’ve knocked anyway. By the fourth day, even Yotha starts getting worried. I finally see him again the next Monday, and he looks exhausted, thinner, smiling immediately when he sees you because he realises you’re scared and I remember thinking, He’s comforting me while he’s the one falling apart.
Please don’t let him isolate himself this time. Please. I think loneliness becomes dangerous for him when it lasts too long.
- Wine

A week. Faifa is disappearing for a week. The thought sat heavily in Wine’s chest for the rest of the morning.
He texted Faifa immediately after reading.
Wine: You up yet?
The response came only a minute later.
Faifa: Unfortunately
Wine exhaled shakily before typing again.
Wine: class today?
Three dots appeared, then:
Faifa: Unfortunately, I don’t know how much longer I can listen to the professor read off slides in that monotone voice before I go crazy.
Wine nearly laughed from relief, because already, already, something felt different from the letter.

The first contradiction happened that same evening. Wine sat cross-legged on his dorm bed, surrounded by notes, when his phone buzzed around eleven. For one terrible moment, dread crawled instantly up his spine. Then he looked down.
Faifa: Are you awake?
Wine answered immediately.
Wine: Yeah, everything good?
A few seconds passed. Then:
Faifa: Jays' not at your dorm on Fridays, right? Can I stay over tonight?
Wine stopped breathing for a moment, because the letter never mentioned this. In Future Wine’s memory, Faifa isolated himself, pulled away, disappeared quietly but now he reached out instead. Emotion hit so suddenly that Wine had to sit down properly on the edge of the bed before answering.
Wine: Always
The response came almost instantly:
Faifa: Okay, good
Faifa: I’m already outside

Wine’s heart nearly stopped. He stood so quickly he almost knocked his chair over before hurrying toward the dorm entrance. Standing just outside, beneath the weak glow of the security light, was Faifa, in an oversized dark hoodie, hair damp from showering. When he saw Wine, he smiled immediately, tired but real.
"You came here after showering?" Wine asked.
Faifa shrugged lightly. "It’s not like I have spare clothes I can change into here."
"You’re impossible."
"Yet you let me stay here anyway."
Still, his voice sounded quieter than usual tonight. Wine stepped aside immediately to let him in, and warm air wrapped around them as they moved back through the dormitory hallways together. Faifa walked close beside him, silently, hands shoved deep into hoodie sleeves, as exhaustion subtly dragged with every movement.
"You can take my bed, I’ll sleep in Jay’s, he’ll just make me wash the sheets tomorrow," Wine said softly.
Faifa frowned instantly. "Are you sure? I can sleep on the floor if needed."
"There are two beds. Why would you sleep on the floor?"
"You said he’ll make you do the laundry…"
"Faifa, it’s laundry, I’m sure I’ll survive."
Faifa laughed faintly beneath his breath before dropping his bag near the desk. "Okay."

The room settled into soft quiet, and despite how intimate everything suddenly felt, neither of them addressed it directly, maybe because doing so would make the nervousness too real, because both of them were already painfully aware of it anyway. By the time they finally turned off the lights, the dormitory building had gradually settled into midnight silence. Wine lay stiffly on one bed, staring at the ceiling. On the bed next to him, Faifa remained equally motionless. The awareness between them felt unbearable. Wine’s heartbeat thudded violently against his ribs.
Faifa laughed softly into the darkness. "You’re still awake."
"So are you."
"Fair." Silence settled again. Then, after a while, "Thanks for letting me stay." The sincerity in Faifa’s voice hurt somehow.
Wine turned slightly toward him in the dark. "You don’t have to say thank you. It’s nice having you here."
"I know." The words settled softly between them, and for the first time, Wine believed he actually meant it. Eventually, exhaustion won, not suddenly, but gradually. Conversation dissolved into fragmented sleepy comments, long silences stretched comfortably between them, and their bodies relaxed inch by inch beneath the blankets.

Wine woke early the next morning out of habit. Pale dawn light filtered softly through the curtains. For several seconds, he remained disoriented before he realised Faifa was still asleep, slow, even breaths escaped him, and, more importantly, he looked deeply asleep, truly at rest. He slept peacefully enough that morning sunlight had already begun filling the room. Wine glanced toward the clock. Nearly ten. Shock settled quietly through him, then emotion followed immediately afterwards, because suddenly the truth became impossible to ignore: the future was changing, not only events, Faifa himself was slowly beginning to understand what safety felt like. Faifa shifted slightly in sleep, face relaxing further against the pillow. Wine decided to stay where he was, watching him from across the room and keeping quiet, not wanting to risk waking him because if Faifa needed rest this badly, then Wine would stay there as long as necessary to protect it. Sitting Wine realised something both beautiful and terrifying: for the first time since the letters began, the future had been completely wrong.
By the third week of January, Wine had begun understanding that healing was not linear. Some days Faifa laughed easily, slept longer, and reached for Wine’s hand beneath tables without thinking. Other days, exhaustion sat visibly inside him again, heavy enough that even smiling seemed to cost energy.
The next letter arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, tucked carefully beneath Wine’s dormitory door after lectures. The paper looked thinner this time, the handwriting messier.

January 19th
Faifa stops sleeping properly around this time. At first nobody notices because he hides exhaustion well, then eventually he runs out of energy to stay bright around people, and that’s when others begin asking questions and Wine, he hates being looked at too closely when he’s struggling, especially if he thinks people are worried.
In the original timeline, he starts shutting down quietly. He still attends lectures, but he leaves immediately before anyone can stop him, and ignores messages for hours. I remember standing outside his condo one night, debating whether I was making things worse by checking on him so often. I should’ve knocked. I think insomnia became dangerous because it meant he was alone for longer.
- Wine

Wine stared at the page long after finishing. Faifa slept more easily beside him, but when alone, something still kept him awake. The thought settled heavily beneath his ribs while the room around him remained quiet.
The evening it happened began quietly. Wine had spent most of the afternoon studying at Faifa’s condo, both of them sprawled across the living room floor, surrounded by notes and half-finished drinks. The condo itself had slowly begun to feel familiar to Wine now, not just a place Faifa lived, but a space carrying pieces of him everywhere: oversized hoodies draped across chairs, notebooks scattered carelessly around the dining table, and painkillers tucked beside the kettle because he forgot to put them away properly. It felt lived in, warm, and perhaps most importantly, safe, at least safer than before.

By late afternoon, Wine noticed the exhaustion settling visibly heavier across Faifa again.
"You don’t have to keep studying," Wine murmured eventually.
"I’d have to study at some point anyway; it’s easier doing it all in one go."
"That’s a concerning mindset."
"It's effective."
Wine laughed softly, but the sound faded quickly when he noticed how tired Faifa truly looked tonight. "Do you want me to go, or we could go out?" he asked gently. The question slipped out naturally, not because Wine wanted to leave, but because he now understood that sometimes exhaustion made people want solitude, too.
"No." The answer came faster than expected, and something warm unfolded painfully through Wine’s chest. Faifa rubbed tiredly at one eye before continuing, softer, “You can stay, I just don’t really want to go out tonight, I would rather stay home."
"Alright, let's stay here then." The relief crossing Faifa’s expression startled him slightly, because that was the difference now: Wine no longer tried forcing him toward normalcy whenever he struggled; instead, he stayed beside him inside it, with no pressure, just a steady presence, and somehow that seemed to help more.

They studied quietly, ordered takeout neither of them finished properly, and watched random videos while sprawled half-asleep against opposite ends of the couch. At some point, while rubbing tiredly at the back of his neck, Faifa looked toward him. "You can stay over if you want."
Wine’s heartbeat stumbled instantly. The invitation sounded casual, but beneath it lived something softer: I don’t want to be alone tonight, and maybe even more frighteningly, I want you here. Wine swallowed carefully. "Okay." The smile Faifa gave him small, relieved, nearly destroyed him.
They ended up together beneath blankets on Faifa’s bed sometime around midnight. The awareness between them still existed, but it had softened lately into something less panicked and more intimate. Their closeness no longer felt accidental; it felt chosen. Wine lay facing the wall at first while Faifa rested beside him quietly scrolling through his phone.
"Are you still awake?"
"Mhm."
"Thanks for staying."
Wine turned slightly toward him in the dark. Moonlight filtered faintly through the curtains, soft silver illuminating the tired edges of Faifa’s face against the pillows. "You never have to thank me for that."
Faifa looked at him silently for several long seconds afterwards. Then, eventually, his eyes softened in that way that always made Wine’s chest ache. "Still, thank you." The honesty in his voice lingered long after the conversation faded, and eventually they both drifted toward sleep, or at least Wine did.

The next time Wine woke, the condo remained dark and silent around him. For several disoriented seconds, he stared sleepily at the ceiling before noticing the space beside him was empty. He sat up immediately. Panic crawled instinctively through his chest before he forced himself to breathe. He noticed faint light spilling quietly from the kitchen. Relief and worry tangled painfully together inside him. The clock beside the bed read 4:17 am.
Wine moved quietly through the condo. The kitchen remained dim except for the small lamp lighting the room, and there sat Faifa, curled into himself on the floor, leaning his back against the counter, wrapped loosely in a blanket, staring blankly into a mug of tea gone cold in his hands.

Faifa noticed him after a moment. "Sorry," he murmured softly. "Did I wake you?"
Wine shook his head before moving closer. "You alright?"
Faifa laughed faintly beneath his breath. "That’s becoming your favourite question."
"Probably because the answers are usually concerning."
A small smile tugged briefly at Faifa’s mouth, but it faded quickly. Wine sat beside him quietly, not forcing conversation, just staying. For a while, only the sound of the refrigerator hummed softly in the silence.
"My brain gets loud at night sometimes." The confession came quietly, matter-of-fact, like something he rarely admitted aloud. Wine looked toward him carefully. Faifa kept staring into the untouched tea. "I get tired enough to sleep," he whispered, "but then the second everything’s quiet I start thinking too much." Every word hurt because the exhaustion beneath them sounded ancient somehow.
"How often does this happen?"
Faifa shrugged weakly. "Most nights lately." Wine’s chest tightened painfully.
Wine reached out quietly beneath the blanket and took Faifa’s hand. Warm fingers intertwined with his immediately, natural now, instinctive. Faifa’s breathing softened almost imperceptibly. "I’m sorry," he murmured after a while.
Wine frowned immediately. "For what?"
"For keeping you awake." The answer shattered him softly, because even now, exhausted and hurting, Faifa still worried more about inconveniencing other people than himself.
Wine squeezed his hand gently. "I’d rather be awake with you than asleep wondering if you’re alone." The words settled heavily into the quiet kitchen. Faifa slowly lowered his forehead briefly against Wine’s shoulder. The tiny act nearly broke Wine’s heart entirely. They stayed there together until sunrise, wrapped in blankets, half-asleep, holding hands quietly while darkness slowly softened into pale morning light beyond the condo windows and for the first time in what was likely years, Faifa did not face his insomnia alone.

By the time they arrived at university later that morning, both of them looked extremely sleep-deprived. Wine yawned through half his lecture, and Faifa nearly walked into a door while carrying coffee. The mentor group had already gathered near the cafeteria when they arrived, and immediately everyone noticed, not the exhaustion first, but the closeness: Wine carrying Faifa’s coffee automatically, Faifa drifting naturally toward his side without thinking, the quiet ease between them now.
Gun stared openly for several seconds. Then, dramatically, "Oh my god, you stayed over at his condo, didn’t you?"
Wine nearly choked to death as Faifa laughed tiredly into his sleeve.
Arm looked deeply vindicated. "What kept you two awake all night, huh?"
Arc sighed heavily. "Judging by the fact they can still look in each other’s eyes, I’m guessing nothing along the lines of what you’re thinking happened."
Beneath the teasing lived something softer too, relief. Wine saw it clearly now in the way the others looked at Faifa lately because today, despite the exhaustion, despite the sleepless night, Faifa still leaned quietly against Wine’s shoulder while waiting for food, still accepted coffee from his hands without apologising, still looked tired, but not alone and across the table, Yotha noticed that difference immediately. Wine saw the exact moment his expression softened, like he understood something important had changed, not perfectly, but enough that for the first time in a very long while, Faifa no longer looked like someone carrying the entire weight of his loneliness by himself.
The next letter arrived two days before the festival. Wine found it folded carefully inside the pocket of the hoodie he had accidentally left at Faifa’s condo the previous night, and the familiar handwriting immediately tightened something uneasy beneath his ribs.
Outside, evening rain drifted softly against the balcony windows while the condo remained warm around him. Faifa was currently half-asleep beside the kitchen counter, pretending to prepare for upcoming exams.

February 6th
Things seem better around this time, and that’s what makes this memory hurt so badly. Faifa starts acting normal again, or what we all thought was normal. He apologises for being distant lately, says he’s just been more tired than usual, and everybody believes him because we want to. I did too.
During the festival he laughs constantly, loud, bright, easy, and the entire group relaxes seeing him like that again. I remember feeling relieved. I thought, he’s okay again, but Wine, now I know it wasn’t real. It was another performance, giving us the act he knew we wanted to see, another way of hiding how bad things had gotten underneath, and somehow that realisation hurts worse because even if the smiles were fake, I still miss them. It became one of the last happy memories we all shared together before everything ended.
If he seems louder that night, please look after him carefully. The louder he becomes, the more he’s hiding.
- Wine

Wine sat motionless after finishing while rain streaked softly against the windows. Inside the kitchen, Faifa yawned sleepily over his notes before mumbling something irritated at his calculator, and the contrast between the letter and reality immediately unsettled Wine, because lately Faifa had not become louder. If anything, the opposite had happened. The brightness still existed, the warmth, the teasing laughter, but around Wine, Faifa no longer seemed to constantly expend energy. He had become quieter somehow, softer, and suddenly Wine realised something terrifying: Future Wine remembered a version of Faifa still hiding from everyone, but this version, the one sitting only a few feet away, wrapped in Wine’s hoodie while squinting tiredly at his notes, was slowly learning not to.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Faifa asked from across the counter, one eyebrow raised sleepily. "You’ve been quiet for like five minutes."
Wine folded the letter carefully before answering, "Just tired."
Faifa studied him for another second, as if he didn’t entirely believe that answer. "Come here."
The softness in his voice made Wine obey automatically, moving quietly toward the kitchen counter.
The second he reached him, Faifa leaned sideways until his forehead rested lightly against Wine’s stomach. Wine froze. "You’re warm," Faifa mumbled tiredly against his shirt.
"You’re sleep deprived."
"Correct!"
Wine laughed softly beneath his breath before resting one careful hand against the back of his head and standing there quietly while rain hummed beyond the windows. He knew something the letter could never fully understand: the future had remembered Faifa surviving alone, but now he reached for comfort instinctively.

Festival night arrived with evening warmth and glowing city lights. The streets surrounding campus overflowed with students and local vendors while lanterns swayed gently overhead, warm gold and red lights reflecting softly across crowded walkways. The mentor group moved together through the festival in chaotic bursts of energy. Gun immediately lost money at a game booth, Arm stole food directly from other people’s plates, and Yotha looked emotionally exhausted by everyone within twenty minutes. Through all of it, Wine watched Faifa carefully, waiting, watching for the loudness the letter described, the performance but it never came.
Instead, Faifa stayed close beside him almost the entire evening, not withdrawn, just quietly happy. The difference startled Wine more the longer he noticed it. Faifa laughed softly at Gun’s dramatic failures, teased Arm without needing to dominate conversations, and accepted shared food from Wine without protesting. More importantly, he rested. Tiny moments where he leaned lightly against Wine while waiting in lines, growing quiet during crowded conversations without forcing himself to re-enter them constantly, simply existing beside people instead of entertaining them. At some point, while the others argued loudly over nearby festival games, Faifa stood beside Wine beneath hanging lanterns, sipping warm tea quietly.
"It’s nice like this."
Wine looked toward him. "The festival?"
Faifa shook his head slightly. "This." The single word settled deep within Wine.
Around them, lights glowed softly through the cold night air while distant laughter blurred warmly between crowded streets, and suddenly Wine understood: Faifa no longer looked like someone desperately trying to convince people he was okay. He looked like someone learning how to relax inside love.

Later in the evening, before the fireworks began, the group drifted naturally toward the hill overlooking the festival grounds, or rather, they suspiciously disappeared one by one. Arm suddenly needed food, Gun dragged Yotha toward another game booth, and Arc claimed he needed to find Arm, leaving Wine and Faifa alone together on the grassy hill beneath the fireworks.
Wine narrowed his eyes suspiciously toward the retreating group. "They’re doing this on purpose."
"Probably."
"You sound weirdly okay with that."
Faifa smiled faintly before sitting down against the hillside grass, and Wine followed automatically beside him. Below them, the festival glowed beautifully beneath the night sky while fireworks burst overhead in soft thunderous waves of colour. For several minutes neither spoke. Their shoulders brushed lightly together while the cold wind moved softly across the hill.
Then slowly, Faifa reached for his hand, natural now. Wine intertwined their fingers immediately. The warmth of his hand against Wine’s felt terrifyingly familiar by this point. Above them, another firework exploded gold across the sky, its light illuminating Faifa’s face briefly. Faifa was watching him instead of the fireworks, and when Wine turned to look at him, neither of them looked away. The world around them softened strangely after that. The sounds of the distant crowd and fireworks faded beneath the quiet intensity of Faifa’s gaze.
Carefully, Faifa leaned forward and kissed him, tentative, like touching something precious enough to break. Wine’s heart stopped entirely. The kiss lasted only a few seconds before Faifa pulled back again, but he stayed close enough that Wine could still feel the warmth of his breath and under the flickering festival lights, Faifa maintained eye contact while asking quietly, "Was that okay?" Emotion crashed so violently through Wine’s chest that he physically couldn’t speak, so instead he leaned forward and kissed him back, short, shy, certain. When they separated again, Faifa smiled quietly, with visible affection warming his exhausted eyes. He wrapped one arm around Wine’s shoulders and pulled him gently closer against his side. Together they watched the remaining fireworks burst across the night sky, and resting safely against Faifa’s warmth while lanterns glowed softly below them, Wine realised something the letters could never fully capture: the future remembered survival, but this, this was living.

A week after the festival the kiss between him and Faifa had settled into something warm and terrifyingly natural, not officially discussed, neither of them seemed willing to risk disrupting whatever fragile beautiful thing had formed between them by forcing labels onto it too quickly. Instead, affection threaded quietly through everything now: hands finding each other automatically, shared hoodies, sleepy kisses against cheeks before lectures, and Faifa showing up outside Wine’s classes carrying coffee like it had always belonged there and perhaps most dangerously, Wine had started smiling at his phone constantly, which was exactly how the others trapped him. The mentor group occupied their usual study room. Wine sat curled sideways on the couch, reading messages from Faifa while trying and failing to suppress helpless laughter.

Faifa: You left your clothes here again
Faifa: If I didn’t know better, I would think you’re subconsciously moving in
Wine smiled immediately while typing back.
Wine: Says the person who steals my shirts to sleep in
Three dots appeared.
Faifa: I look better in them.

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Across the room, Gun narrowed his eyes dramatically. "Oh my god."
Wine blinked up. "What?"
"You’re giggling."
"That wasn’t a giggle."
"You absolutely giggled," Arm agreed immediately.

Wine rolled his eyes, ignoring them, still smiling helplessly down at his phone. Then another message appeared.
Faifa: I miss you already
Faifa: Which is dramatic because I saw you like an hour ago, but what can one man do but look longingly for the person he cares for most?
Wine’s face burned instantly.

Across the room, Arc looked up from his notes slowly, then sighed. "He’s gone."
"I hate watching people fall in love in real time," Gun muttered
Wine nearly dropped his phone. "We are not…"
"Don’t start with that denial," Arm interrupted immediately. "You look at him like he's the most precious thing on this earth."
Wine opened his mouth to deny but nothing came out.
Gun pointed aggressively. "See?"

Before Wine could recover enough to defend himself, Yotha suddenly set his phone down. The movement alone shifted something in the room immediately, because Yotha rarely interrupted conversations intentionally, and when he did, people listened. "We need to talk to you about something," he said quietly. The atmosphere changed instantly.
Wine’s smile faded slowly, and around the room, even Gun stopped joking. A strange unease curled beneath Wine’s ribs immediately. "What’s wrong?"
Arc placed a folded piece of paper carefully onto the table between them, then Gun did the same, then Arm, then Yotha. Four letters. Four different pieces of paper, all written in familiar handwriting. Wine stared at them in complete silence while his heartbeat thundered violently against his ribs. Finally, softly, he asked, "You got letters too?"
The room went still. Yotha looked at him carefully. "So you did receive one." Wine’s chest tightened painfully because suddenly so many things made sense: the way they watched Faifa, the way they subtly pushed Wine toward him constantly, the strange instinctive protectiveness surrounding the entire group lately. Arm rubbed tiredly at his face. "We got ours near the start of term."
"One each," Gun added quietly.
Arc’s voice remained low. "They all mentioned Faifa."
Wine looked down slowly at the letters spread across the table, and emotion rose sharply into his throat. All this time, he thought he carried the future alone, and somehow, the realisation that he hadn’t hurt worse than expected.
Yotha leaned forward slightly. "We figured you probably received one too."
Wine swallowed hard. "How?"
The answer came immediately. "The way you look at him," Gun said softly. His usual brightness had disappeared entirely now, replaced by something heavier. "You started noticing things nobody else did," he continued quietly. "His eating, concerning injuries, or even his sleep patterns"
Arm nodded slowly. "And you reacted to stuff before it happened sometimes." Wine looked away briefly because he hadn’t known how obvious it had become.
Silence settled heavily through the room then finally, quietly, Wine said, "I’ve been getting them since my first day at University."
The entire room stilled. Arc frowned immediately. "Getting them?"
Yotha looked at him carefully. "Plural?"
There was no point hiding it now. Wine nodded once. Shock crossed every face in the room instantly.
Gun sat up fully. "Wait, you got more than one?"
"How many?"
Wine rubbed tiredly at the back of his neck. "At the start, it was usually two or three a week." Complete silence followed. Even Arc looked visibly unsettled now.
Arm spoke first. "That’s impossible."
"What do they say?" Gun asked quietly.

Wine hesitated. How could he explain months of grief folded into paper? The rooftop, the loneliness, Future Wine begging him over and over not to let Faifa disappear. Finally he answered softly, "They’re memories." The room remained completely silent. Wine looked down at his hands. "Future me writes about things that already happened for him," he explained quietly, "usually events involving Faifa. He remembers moments where Faifa was hurting and nobody noticed properly until later, he mentions specific dates as if he was rewriting from a diary" Yotha’s jaw tightened visibly. Wine swallowed hard before continuing. "At first the letters matched everything exactly." His voice softened further. "But now they don’t." That caught everyone’s attention immediately.
Gun frowned slightly. "What changed?"
Wine swallowed hard. "The letters keep describing Faifa becoming…" He searched briefly for the right words. "Louder." The room stayed silent. "Future me writes about him acting bright again," Wine continued softly, "like he starts performing happiness harder around this time, trying to make sure no one notices there's anything wrong." He thought back to the festival letter, the fake laughter, the brightness, the relief Future Wine remembered too late. "But that’s not what’s happening now."
Arc looked toward him carefully. "What is happening now?"
Wine’s expression softened before he could stop it. "He’s quieter." The honesty in his voice lingered heavily through the room. "Not in a bad way," he added quickly. "He still laughs and jokes around, but it feels real now." Nobody interrupted. "He doesn’t seem like someone trying to drown everything out anymore." Wine looked down briefly at his hands. 2Honestly… it feels like he’s actually processing things, trying to heal." Across the room, something in Yotha’s expression shifted. Relief, small, but there.
Gun exhaled shakily while leaning back into the couch cushions. "So the future’s changing."
"I think so."
Arm rubbed tiredly at his face. "That’s insane."
"It’s terrifying," Arc corrected quietly.
Wine nodded faintly, because it was terrifying. The letters had once felt like certainty. Now they felt unstable, unpredictable, and, somehow, that uncertainty frightened him more than grief sometimes did.

Gun asked, "Do the letters say what happened to Faifa?"
The question hollowed the room instantly, not because they didn’t know, but because Wine realised immediately they already did. He saw it in the way nobody looked surprised asking it, in the way Yotha’s jaw tightened, in the heaviness already sitting inside the silence. They just wanted to know whether Wine knew too. His breath caught painfully in his throat. Slowly, his eyes lowered toward the letters scattered across the table, and the look on his face answered before words ever could: grief, fear, the terrible understanding he carried every day. Nobody spoke because suddenly the room felt full of the same shared horror, the knowledge of a future in which Faifa no longer existed.

"We won’t let it happen again," Yotha said at last. The words landed heavily in the room, not dramatic, just certain. Gun looked toward him immediately, Arm went still, and even Arc’s expression softened slightly around the edges. Yotha’s voice remained calm when he continued, though something fragile lived underneath it. "He spent too many years carrying things alone already." Emotion rose sharply into Wine’s throat, and across the table, for the first time since the letters began, the fear no longer felt like his alone anymore.
After the others revealed their letters, something shifted permanently within the group. Nobody spoke about the future directly in front of Faifa, but Wine noticed the subtle changes. Everyone caring more openly. Enough that sometimes he caught Faifa staring at everyone, a faint confusion in his eyes, as if he could feel the strange, careful warmth surrounding him lately without understanding where it came from.

It was late March when he received the letter where the him of the future sounded more broken than the others. Wine found it folded carefully beneath his pillow while staying over at Faifa’s condo, the familiar handwriting immediately making dread curl low in his stomach.
Next to him, Faifa slept deeply for once, a hand still loosely curled in the fabric of Wine’s shirt, like even asleep, he reached instinctively toward warmth now.

March 28th
Things become strangely normal around this time, and that’s what makes remembering it so horrible. We still saw Faifa almost every day. He still laughed, still showed up to dinners, still helped people constantly, and everyone kept seeking him out: classmates, friends, juniors asking for advice. Nobody noticed anything was wrong because he never stopped being useful to people.
Around this time, he starts wearing longer sleeves more often. I remember noticing once, just once, then never thinking about it again. God, I hate myself for that now. His laughter sometimes sounded forced, but I thought he was tired. Everybody thought he was tired.
Wine, I didn’t know he was hurting this much. None of us did. The worst part is how ordinary those weeks looked from the outside. That’s what grief does to memories sometimes: it poisons them afterwards. Suddenly, every smile looks painful in hindsight, and every quiet moment feels like something you should’ve understood sooner.
People only realised Faifa was gone because they needed him for something and couldn’t find him anywhere. Messages stopped being delivered, calls went unanswered, and everyone thought, 'That’s strange.' It was Yotha who found him, alone in the apartment, and after that, none of us was ever the same again. There was too much grief left inside everything, too many regrets, too many moments replaying in our heads, wondering how we missed it.
- Wine

Wine stopped reading halfway through the final paragraph because his vision blurred too badly. Beside him, Faifa remained asleep, warm, alive. The contrast nearly shattered him. He looked down slowly toward the sleeping shape curled softly beside him beneath the blankets, long sleeves, forced laughter, people needing things from him constantly, while nobody noticed he was drowning underneath it. The grief inside the letter felt unbearable because Future Wine wasn’t remembering tragedy; he was remembering normality, the ordinary everyday version of Faifa everyone believed was okay right before losing him forever and suddenly Wine understood something horrifying: in the original timeline, Faifa never stopped functioning long enough for people to realise how badly he was suffering. He exhausted himself quietly until there was nothing left. Emotion climbed violently into Wine’s throat. Faifa stirred faintly in sleep before shifting closer instinctively, his forehead brushing lightly against Wine’s shoulder. Wine’s chest physically hurt, because this version of Faifa was different now, still hurting, still exhausted, but softer somehow, less alone.
Slowly, carefully, Wine folded the letter closed before setting it aside. Then he reached down gently into the blankets and intertwined their hands. Faifa responded immediately even half-asleep, fingers curling instinctively around his.

The days leading toward the end of term passed strangely, as if everyone unconsciously sensed the shadow of the future approaching and compensated by loving harder. The mentor group spent increasing amounts of time together now, late-night study sessions dissolving into shared takeout and sleepy conversations, movie nights where Faifa gradually stopped masking exhaustion completely and curled quietly against Wine instead, morning lectures where Wine arrived carrying extra coffee automatically because Faifa slept slightly later lately.
Tiny domestic intimacies accumulated everywhere now. At some point, Wine noticed Faifa had started leaving things at his dorm unintentionally, workbooks, phone chargers, one of his hoodies draped permanently over Wine’s desk chair. Wine never returned any of it. The others noticed too. Gun dramatically accused them of emotionally nesting, Arm agreed immediately. Arc looked exhausted by everyone but beneath the teasing lived relief because this Faifa, the one leaning sleepily into Wine between lectures, the one allowing himself rest, the one reaching for comfort instead of isolation, felt different from the future described in the letters. Yet, fear remained, because some things still hadn’t changed completely. There were still nights Faifa barely slept, still mornings where exhaustion hollowed him out visibly, still moments where Wine caught him staring too long into nothingness before quietly pulling himself back into conversations. Healing existed now, but so did damage.
One evening after lectures, the group gathered outside the campus café. Faifa sat beside Wine, yawning openly before immediately leaning sideways until his forehead rested lightly against Wine’s shoulder. No performance, no brightness, just tiredness, honestly shown. The tiny act unravelled something painful inside Wine because the future remembered forced laughter and hidden pain, but this real-present version was learning to be seen while struggling.
Across the table, Yotha watched quietly. Their eyes met briefly, and without speaking, both of them understood the same thing: Faifa still hurt, but now he no longer hurt alone, perhaps enough to change what came next.

The final letter arrived without warning. There was no folded page hidden inside textbooks, no paper tucked beneath dormitory doors, no familiar placement that allowed Wine even a few seconds to prepare himself emotionally first. He found this one lying alone on his desk the morning of the final day of term, and immediately, before even touching it, he knew something was wrong.
The paper looked different, older somehow, more fragile at the edges, the fold lines worn softer like it had been opened too many times before reaching him but what truly made cold dread crawl violently through his chest was the handwriting, because it wasn’t his.
Wine stopped breathing. The world looked painfully ordinary, but his hands had already started shaking. Slowly, carefully, Wine unfolded the paper and read.

May 5th
I’m sorry. I know that’s probably a horrible way to start this. I kept trying to write something better, but nothing sounded right, maybe because there isn’t a right way to explain becoming too tired to continue living.
If you’re reading this, then I finally stopped running in circles inside my own head. I think people will probably feel angry at first, or sad, or guilty, but I hope that eventually everyone can live freely again without worrying about the health of someone who didn’t want to stay alive anyway. I know I made things difficult. Even when people cared about me, I never really knew how to exist properly inside that care. I’m sorry for that too.
Please don’t mourn me for too long. I think I lost myself a long time ago. After a while, it felt like I was only a body trying desperately to find a purpose somewhere, but no matter where I went, I always felt like something temporary, like I never fully belonged anywhere enough to call it mine. I kept trying to become easy to love, easy to keep, easy to want around, but I’m exhausted from performing a version of myself that made everyone else comfortable while feeling empty underneath.
This isn’t anyone’s fault. Please believe that. Everyone in my life loved me the best they could. I was just too tired to carry myself anymore, and honestly, I always wanted to sleep, really sleep. I think I can finally rest now. That thought makes me feel peaceful for the first time in a very long while.
I don’t know if anyone will mourn me for long, but you don’t need to. I think I’m happier this way. Thank you to everyone who was part of my life. Thank you for laughing with me. Thank you for loving me even when I didn’t understand how to stay.
I hope all of you achieve your dreams in this life. I hope Yotha smiles more. I hope Gun never loses his warmth. I hope Arm and Arc stay together forever because, honestly, you two are ridiculous. Wine, thank you for seeing me. I think part of me stayed alive longer because of you. I’m sorry it still wasn’t enough. Please find someone better than me after this. I want you to be happy; you deserve it.
Thank you for letting me experience happiness. My time at university has been my favourite memory. I hope we can all meet again in my next life.
Faifa

By the end of the letter, Wine could no longer breathe properly. The page shook violently between his hands while emotion tore upward through his chest hard enough to hurt. Outside, sunlight still poured softly across campus, people laughed below his dormitory window, and the world kept moving but all Wine could see was: I always wanted to sleep. I think I can finally rest now.
Something inside him broke apart quietly, because this wasn’t grief written afterwards by Future Wine. This was Faifa himself, tired enough to believe dying would finally let him rest. Wine pressed trembling fingers hard against his mouth as tears blurred violently across the page. The worst part, the truly unbearable part, was how gently the note had been written, not angry, not dramatic, apologetic, like even in death Faifa still worried more about burdening other people than himself.
Wine’s chest ached so violently he thought it might genuinely split apart and suddenly every moment from the past months replayed brutally through his head, Faifa apologising for insomnia, apologising for needing comfort, thanking Wine for staying beside him like his existence itself required repayment because somewhere deep inside himself, Faifa truly believed everyone would eventually feel freer without him. The realisation nearly destroyed him. Wine folded forward slowly in his chair, gripping the letter tightly while tears slipped helplessly down his face. Underneath the grief, rage bloomed too, not toward Faifa, but toward every person who taught him love had to be earned through usefulness, toward every moment he learned his pain inconvenienced people, toward every year he survived believing exhaustion made him difficult to keep.
The note felt unbearably lonely. Even surrounded by love, Faifa still wrote like someone preparing to quietly remove himself from the world so others could finally relax. Wine wiped shakily at his face, then looked down at the final lines again: And Wine, thank you for seeing me. I think part of me stayed alive longer because of you. The words hurt so badly he almost stopped breathing again, because suddenly he understood something terrifying: in the original timeline, Faifa loved him too, maybe not loudly, maybe not long enough, but enough to keep trying, to stay alive longer.
His phone buzzed suddenly beside him. Wine startled hard enough that the letter slipped partially from his lap. Then he looked down.

Faifa: Are you awake? Gun is threatening everyone into breakfast
A second message arrived immediately after.
Faifa: Also, I miss you already

Wine stared at the screen while tears still blurred his vision. Alive. Faifa was alive, still texting him stupid things in the morning, still existing in the world outside this terrible letter, still here. The realisation hit so hard that Wine rose from the desk chair immediately, his heart hammering violently against his ribs, because suddenly he understood: this note belonged to a version of Faifa who died believing he was forgettable, but this present, living version had been loved differently, seen differently, held differently. Maybe, that changed everything.
The group stayed unnaturally close to Faifa after that, not obviously enough for him to become suspicious, but close, like everyone subconsciously feared that letting him out of their sight for too long might somehow allow the future to slip back into place around them.

Wine carried the folded suicide note in the pocket of his hoodie all afternoon like something sharp lodged directly beside his heart. Every time he looked at Faifa, the words replayed violently in his head: I always wanted to sleep. I think I can finally rest now. It made ordinary moments unbearable, Faifa leaning naturally against Wine’s shoulder while scrolling through his phone, alive, warm, still here. The contrast between the letter and reality hurt so badly that Wine thought it might physically split him apart.
By evening, the group had gathered outside the library, discussing plans for celebrating the end of term. Nobody wanted to separate; that much became obvious almost immediately.
Gun was the first to say it aloud. "We should all stay together tonight."
Arm nodded instantly. "Yes."
Yotha looked toward Faifa carefully. "You okay with that?"
For a moment, Faifa looked surprised by the question, then softly said, "Yeah." No hesitation, no forced smile, just quiet agreement.
Arm immediately clapped his hands together dramatically. "Good. I’ve already planned some new games for all of us to play."
"That sounds threatening,"
Arc muttered. "It is."
For a little while things almost felt normal again. The group walked together through campus beneath cold evening lights while students celebrated the end of term around them. Gun argued loudly about food options, Arm kept physically hanging off Arc, and beside Wine, Faifa looked soft, still tired, but softer. At one point, while Gun and Arm argued ahead of them, Faifa reached sideways automatically until his fingers intertwined loosely with Wine’s. The gesture felt so natural now but after a few seconds, Faifa glanced sideways toward him with faint amusement. "You’re staring again."
Wine blinked. "I’m not."
"You absolutely are."
"You’re imagining things."
Faifa smiled softly, and suddenly the memory of the suicide note crashed violently through Wine again: thank you for seeing me. Emotion rose sharply into his throat because this version of Faifa smiled like someone slowly learning he belonged somewhere after all.

Eventually, the group stopped near the local convenience store to buy snacks before heading back to Arm and Arc’s apartment for the night. Faifa checked his phone briefly before sighing. "I should probably stop by my condo first and grab clothes." Wine’s stomach tightened instantly. He noticed Yotha subtly go still too, Gun looked down immediately, Arm’s smile faded slightly, Arc folded his arms tighter. Everyone remembered. Still, Faifa noticed none of it.

"I’ll be like thirty minutes, my condo is in the opposite direction to everyone else's," he added casually.
Wine almost spoke immediately: Don’t go alone. I’ll come with you. Please don’t leave, but before panic could fully rise, Faifa leaned closer briefly and pressed a soft, quick kiss against Wine’s cheek. "Go have fun, I’ll meet you guys there," he murmured. The tenderness of it stunned Wine silent. Then Faifa smiled faintly at the group before heading toward his condo. Wine watched him disappear into the crowd, and suddenly something felt wrong, not logically, instinctively, the same awful feeling that existed before storms.

At first, nobody said anything. The group awkwardly stayed inside the convenience store, pretending to browse snacks while constantly checking their phones. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Wine texted first:
Wine: Made it home?
Read.
No response. His stomach twisted. Gun checked his own phone. "Do you think he’s showering?"
"Maybe," Arm agreed too quickly.

Twenty minutes passed. Wine called. The phone rang fully before voicemail answered, and something cold crawled violently beneath his skin. Around him, the others had begun checking their own phones now too. The atmosphere changed instantly afterwards, not panic yet, but close. No replies, no calls answered, messages left on read. Wine felt fear beginning to hollow him out from the inside, because suddenly every line of the suicide note replayed brutally through his head: Please don’t mourn me for too long. I think I’m happier this way. No. No, no.
"I’m going to his condo." Wine was already moving before he even finished speaking. The motion happened instinctively, chair scraping violently backwards, heart hammering so hard he felt sick.
"We’re coming too." Nobody argued, because fear had finally become visible now.

The group rushed out. Wine barely noticed any of it. His breathing had gone uneven already, every terrible possibility crashing violently through his mind with each passing second. What if the future corrected itself anyway? What if they changed everything except this? What if he’s alone right now? The thought nearly stopped his heart entirely. Wine broke into a run. He heard the others shouting his name, but he didn’t stop, couldn’t. His hands shook violently. Please be alive. Please. Please…
Behind him, footsteps pounded rapidly against pavement as the others chased after him through the city, but Wine didn’t notice, didn’t hear anything except his own heartbeat and the terrible screaming fear inside his head as Faifa’s condo building finally appeared in the distance.
Wine hit the condo lobby breathless, lungs burning violently from the run, while panic clawed through every thought in his head.
The receptionist looked startled as he rushed forward. "Faifa, room 307, did he come back?" Wine asked. The woman blinked quickly before nodding. "Yes, but he went upstairs again maybe ten minutes ago." Wine was already moving.

The elevator felt impossibly slow. Every second stretched into agony while the folded suicide note burned against his chest inside his hoodie pocket. Beside him, Yotha’s breathing sounded uneven, Gun looked pale, and Arm gripped Arc’s sleeve tightly enough that his knuckles had gone white. Nobody spoke. They didn’t need to, because all of them carried the exact same fear now.
The elevator doors opened, and Wine ran immediately down the corridor, past Faifa’s apartment door, toward the stairwell, because somewhere deep inside himself, he already knew. The rooftop. The memory hit violently: Faifa once telling him he came up there whenever everything felt too loud. Wine shoved the stairwell door open hard enough that it slammed against concrete, then ran up, his legs shaking violently by the final flight while one prayer repeated breathlessly through his head: Please. Please be alive.
Then the rooftop door appeared. Wine hit it with enough force that the metal slammed open loudly, the sound echoing sharply across the rooftop and for one terrible, horrifying second, he expected the worst. Instead, Faifa sat on the ground near the edge, shoes discarded carelessly beside him, back pressed against the railings instead of facing outward toward the drop. Alive. Relief hit so violently Wine nearly collapsed where he stood.

Slowly, Faifa looked up. His eyes were swollen red, tears stained visibly across his face, and the remains of his usual smile were completely gone. Suddenly, he looked exactly nineteen, not the bright easy version everyone leaned on, just a devastated, exhausted boy who had been surviving alone far too long.
For several seconds, neither moved. Then quietly, Faifa spoke. "I tried." His voice cracked apart immediately. Wine stopped breathing. Faifa looked away shakily toward the city lights. "I really tried," he said, every word sounding broken. "But I couldn’t do it." He wasn’t relieved but confused, ashamed like surviving itself felt like failure.
The sound of it nearly killed Wine. He crossed the distance immediately, no hesitation, one second near the doorway and the next kneeling in front of Faifa and pulling him violently into his arms before another thought could exist between them, and that was the moment Faifa finally broke, not politely, not quietly. Years of restraint shattered all at once. A sob ripped out of him so violently his whole body folded inward against Wine’s chest.

Wine held him tighter instantly. Faifa clung to him desperately, fingers twisting painfully into the fabric of Wine’s hoodie while sobs wrecked through him hard enough that he could barely breathe properly. "I’m sorry," he choked out immediately. "I’m sorry, so sorry."
"No," Wine whispered at once, his own voice shaking badly now too. "No, no, no," Wine tried to comfort him, but Faifa kept crying anyway, not restrained tears, not the careful, silent crying Wine had seen before; this was grief finally tearing itself open after years trapped inside his chest.
"I’m so tired," Faifa sobbed brokenly against him. "I’m so tired all the time."
Wine’s own tears blurred violently down his face now. He tightened his arms around him desperately. "You don’t have to carry it alone anymore."
"I still think about leaving," Faifa cried helplessly. "I still want to disappear sometimes, and I hate myself for it because every time I try, I keep thinking about staying instead." His voice broke entirely. "I keep thinking about you, Yotha and everyone, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me because I want to leave, but I want to stay too, and it hurts so much."

Wine broke completely then. Emotion tore violently through his chest as he cupped Faifa’s face despite his own shaking hands. "You matter." Faifa sobbed harder instantly. "You never had to earn staying," Wine cried softly. "Do you understand me?" Faifa shook his head helplessly like he genuinely couldn’t. So Wine held him tighter, crying openly now too. "No," he repeated shakily against his hair. "No, you don’t get to leave alone. We love you, Faifa, all of us love you so much."

Faifa just held him, listening and really hearing it, and it finally shattered the last thing holding Faifa together. He buried his face hard into Wine’s shoulder while sobbing so violently he could barely breathe, years of loneliness, fear, exhaustion, and self-hatred breaking open at once. Wine just held him, held him like he intended to keep holding him through every terrible night he will experience in the future.

The rooftop door creaked open behind them moments later. The others had arrived. Arc stepped through first, then stopped instantly, because they heard Faifa crying, not restrained crying, not the quiet hidden tears they had all suspected but never witnessed, real crying. The sound froze every single one of them where they stood. Yotha covered his mouth immediately, and Wine heard the sharp broken inhale he made before visibly starting to shake, because this was his little brother, his endlessly smiling little brother finally collapsing apart in someone’s arms after years of pretending he was okay. Gun started crying almost immediately too. Arm gripped Arc’s sleeve so tightly his knuckles whitened. None of them interrupted because standing there in the rooftop doorway while Faifa finally cried openly for the first time in front of people who loved him, every single one of them understood the same thing: the future changed, not because they prevented Faifa from hurting, not because the pain disappeared, but because this time he wasn’t hurting alone anymore.

"I’m messing everything up," he sobbed brokenly against Wine’s shoulder. "I ruin everything.."
"You haven't ruined anything," Wine whispered immediately.
"Yes, I have," Faifa cried helplessly. "Even now I’m still thinking about leaving, and staying here with you feels wrong because…because…" His voice cracked violently apart.
Wine tightened his arms around him instinctively. "Faifa"
"I’m selfish," he choked out. "I’m selfish because I wanted you anyway."
The confession shattered something deep inside Wine’s chest. Faifa’s breathing came uneven and panicked now, tears soaking through the front of Wine’s jumper "You’re so good to me," Faifa whispered brokenly. "Your soul is so beautiful, and I keep thinking I’m corrupting it somehow."
Wine’s eyes burned immediately with fresh tears. "That’s not true."
"You deserve someone who can love you properly," Faifa cried. "Someone who doesn’t think about disappearing all the time." Every word sounded like something carved directly into him over the years. Faifa kept going, as if the thoughts had poisoned him for too long to stop now. "I wanted you to myself," he admitted shakily. "I wanted to try being loved at least once, and now it scares me how much being around you makes me want to stay alive."

At the doorway behind them, Gun covered his mouth while crying openly now, and Yotha looked shattered completely, but Wine only held Faifa closer, because hearing that, really hearing it, felt like witnessing someone confess hope for the first time while terrified it would be taken away. "There is nobody better than you," Wine whispered fiercely.
Faifa shook his head immediately against him. "There is."
"No." Tears were streaking endlessly down both of their faces. "It’s me who’s lucky," Wine whispered desperately. "Do you understand?" Faifa stared at him like he physically couldn’t process the words. "You are the most precious person I will ever meet." Wine continued shakily. "Even while hurting this badly, you still spend every day caring for everyone else first." Faifa’s expression crumpled harder. "You always prioritise people around you," Wine said softly. "You notice when others are tired. You remember everyone’s favourite drinks. You make sure nobody feels left out." More tears slipped helplessly down Faifa’s face, "and I love the way you make those tiny sleepy noises when you’re exhausted," Wine whispered through tears. "I love how you watch over me without even thinking about it." The confession felt unbearably intimate beneath the cold rooftop lights. "You make loving you easy," Wine said brokenly. "So easy."
Faifa shook his head weakly. "No…"
"Yes. If anyone isn’t worthy of being loved by everyone here," Wine whispered shakily, "It’s probably me."
Immediately, fiercely, Faifa shut down the words. "That’s not true." The certainty in his voice startled everyone. Even broken apart and sobbing, Faifa defended him instantly. Wine’s chest hurt so badly he thought it might stop beating altogether.
"It is," he whispered.
"No," Faifa cried immediately. "Don’t say things like that."

Wine looked at him carefully then, really looked at him, at the devastation in his swollen eyes, the fear, the desperate confusion every time kindness touched him, and suddenly Wine realised something unbearable: Faifa genuinely could not imagine a world where someone stayed because they loved him. Faifa kept staring at him vulnerably, like he was waiting for the moment the illusion broke. Then quietly, small enough it almost disappeared into the wind, he asked, "Why did you come here?"

The question hollowed the rooftop, because beneath it lived something far more painful: Why would anyone choose me? Wine’s throat tightened violently. He answered honestly, "Because I love you." Silence followed. Even the wind seemed to be still around them. Faifa stopped breathing for a moment. Wine’s hands trembled where they still held his face gently. "When I think about my future," he whispered shakily, "I want to be beside you."
The words landed softly, but they shattered Faifa completely. His expression crumpled with such raw heartbreak and disbelief that Wine immediately pulled him closer again, because Faifa looked like someone hearing love spoken directly toward him for the very first time, like he physically did not know how to survive being wanted that gently.

Against him, Faifa trembled violently. His voice cracking apart entirely, he whispered, "I messaged my mum earlier today." Wine froze instantly. Behind them, Yotha visibly went rigid too. Faifa’s hands shook harder. "I asked her…" His breathing hitched painfully. "I asked her what she’d do if I disappeared."
The rooftop went deathly quiet. Wine felt dread crawl cold beneath his skin, Faifa whispered, "She told me to do it quietly." The words shattered the world open. Faifa cried harder against him. "She didn’t care," Faifa sobbed brokenly. "Not once." At the doorway, Yotha made a sound like something inside him had split apart completely. Gun burst into fresh tears immediately. Arm buried his face hard into Arc’s shoulder.

Wine held Faifa like he was trying to protect him from every cruel thing ever said to him all at once. "Listen to me Faifa," he whispered fiercely through tears. Faifa shook helplessly against him. "You are not hard to love." More sobs wrecked through Faifa instantly. "You are not selfish for wanting to stay alive." Wine pressed trembling hands carefully against the sides of his face again, forcing him gently to look at him. "And you are not your mother’s failure to love you properly."

The rooftop slowly grew quiet again after that, not because the pain disappeared, but because Faifa finally ran out of strength to keep carrying it all at once. His crying softened gradually into uneven breathing and small exhausted tremors against Wine’s chest. Wine never loosened his hold, not even after Faifa stopped apologising; his sobs faded into silence. He just kept holding him carefully, one hand buried softly in dark hair while the other remained secure around his waist, like he was terrified letting go too early might somehow undo everything.

Against him, Faifa looked exhausted beyond words now. Years of survival seemed to sit visibly inside his bones, and still, even now, he leaned unconsciously closer whenever Wine adjusted his hold around him. The tiny instinct nearly broke Wine apart, because this was trust, real trust, not performance, not careful politeness, need.
Behind them, the others remained gathered quietly near the rooftop doorway. Nobody interrupted, the atmosphere around them had changed too profoundly for that now. Every single one of them realised the same terrifying truth: Faifa’s healing had not ended tonight, it had only just begun.

Much later, once Faifa’s breathing finally evened into exhausted quietness against him, Wine rested his cheek lightly against his hair and closed his eyes briefly. Only then, in the silence afterwards, did the understanding finally hit him. The letters had changed, but not in the way he assumed. Wine’s chest tightened painfully, because somewhere along the way he had begun mistaking quietness for healing. Future Wine described brightness, forced laughter, loudness hiding pain, and when present, Faifa became softer instead, quieter and more restful around him. Wine thought, He’s getting better but now he understood what he failed to read between the lines: Faifa adapted. Even while hurting, he shaped himself carefully around what made other people less worried. At first, he smiled too brightly because everyone expected warmth from him. Then later, when Wine and the others responded positively to his softness, his quietness, his resting, Faifa unconsciously shifted toward that too, not manipulatively, instinctively, because underneath everything else, he still carried the same terrifying fear: If I become difficult again, they’ll leave. The realisation hollowed Wine out completely because, for a while, even subconsciously, he began to believe things were better now and maybe they were better, but better did not mean healed. If he had ignored tonight, if they all had, he could have lost Faifa all over again while believing they were finally safe. The thought made him feel physically sick.

Against him, Faifa stirred faintly. Wine tightened his arms instinctively.
Faifa looked up slightly, eyes heavy and exhausted. "What?"
Wine swallowed hard against the emotion tightening painfully in his throat. Then honestly: "I’m sorry."
Confusion flickered weakly across Faifa’s face. "For what?"
Wine brushed damp hair carefully away from his forehead. "For thinking quiet meant okay." Something vulnerable broke softly across Faifa’s expression then, not because the words hurt him, but because they understood him too well. Slowly, tiredly, Faifa leaned his forehead against Wine’s shoulder again, and this time he didn’t pretend to smile.

Two weeks later, Wine sat beside Faifa outside the doctor’s office, their shoulders pressed lightly together on the waiting room couch. Faifa looked nervous, not visibly enough for most people to notice. Still, Wine noticed immediately in the restless movement of his fingers, the slight tension in his shoulders, and the way he kept staring at the office door like he was debating escape routes. His appointment started in six minutes.
"I don’t know what I’m supposed to say," Faifa admitted quietly after a while.
Wine looked toward him softly. "You don’t have to say anything immediately."
Faifa frowned slightly. "I don’t think I can do another questionnaire. Do you think I will have to talk about my answers?"
Wine smiled faintly. "You’ll be able to talk about anything." When Faifa still looked unconvinced, Wine continued gently, "They won’t force you to open up all at once, the questionnaire was structured for you to get your medication, this is different, no one will force you to say anything."
The waiting room remained warm and quiet around them while pale sunlight filtered softly across the floor. Wine reached over slowly and intertwined their hands, and Faifa’s breathing softened almost immediately. "You know," Wine murmured carefully, "Sometimes it’s easier telling a stranger you’re struggling than telling someone you love."
Faifa stared down quietly at their hands. Then after a moment, he asked, "Why?"
Wine thought briefly before answering honestly. "Because strangers don’t already have a version of you in their head." The words settled softly between them. "With people you love," Wine continued gently, "you get scared they’ll see you differently." Faifa’s expression shifted faintly, like the statement had hit somewhere painfully accurate. Wine squeezed his hand once. "But the therapist already knows that hurt shows in different ways" he whispered. "So you don’t have to spend energy pretending first."
For several seconds, Faifa said nothing. Then, finally, very quietly, "I think I’m scared."
Wine’s chest tightened immediately. "I know, the doctor already said if you don’t like it, we can find something else, but let's try first, I’ll stay by you no matter what."
"What if I say something wrong?"
"You won’t."
"What if they think I’m too much?"
Wine turned fully toward him then, and with complete certainty answered, "You survived years of pain that were never meant to be carried alone. That doesn’t make you too much."
Silence settled gently around them afterwards, not uncomfortable, resting. Then, finally, the office door opened softly, and the therapist smiled warmly toward them. "Faifa?" Wine felt him tense beside him. Then slowly, hesitantly, Faifa stood. For one brief second, fear flickered visibly across his face again, but then Wine squeezed his hand once more, this time Faifa let himself feel his emotions instead of pushing them away.
Finally, Faifa was beginning the journey of healing. Though he can never forget the past, he can learn to look forward to the future.